


oh my god. she's looking at me.

by brightly_brightly



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, High School AU, but i wrote this for the comedy so don't be a dick about it, just some fluff, root is an awkward nerd, shaw is a bad ass, sloppily written, they are a twinge out of character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2018-07-18 13:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 35,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7316143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightly_brightly/pseuds/brightly_brightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Root has a crush.<br/>Shaw has suspicions.<br/>Martine has a series of really, really bad days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. guidance

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this on tumblr and then kind of wanted to share it for people who don't have tumblr. It's silly but I have fun doing it. Hope you enjoy. This is my first official "au."

“I enjoy belitting people way too much to get an arts degree.“

  
Mrs. Tay, The guidance counselor swallows another sigh as Samanth– no, don’t call her that, not since the Incident, call her ROOT– aimlessly drops a nibbled-bare apple core in her trash bin. She shuffles her papers. Root picks her nails and watches the girls basketball team run laps on the track outside.

  
“What about the sciences?“

  
Root shrugs. The girls basketball team passes the window and Root stares at their toned calves and dirty sneakers pounding by. They have outdoor practice at the same time and on the same day, every week, all off-season. Root knows this because there isn't much she doesn't know, even about sports.

  
"You took all the AP science classes. and got fives on the exams. so it must interest you,” Mrs. Tay prods.

  
Root sighs and shrugs again, “there were extenuating circumstances. I also got fives on those pointless humanities APs…”

"And after all that, you would still call the humanities pointless? Mrs. Dougal nominated you for the prize for best essay of the year for your piece on… what was it? Panopticism and the Subject in Early Modern Drama?”

  
Root gives her an eyebrow raise that somehow seems half sad and half condescending at the same time.

  
“I want to go to MIT. for computer sciences. I already got in. Early Admission."

  
Mrs. Tay prays for strength as she updates Root’s file.

  
At least Root isn’t staring at her, all wide-eyed and terrifying and saying bubbly but uttlerly horrible and too too insightful things as she often does when she’s in trouble.

  
A few minutes pass. The basketball team runs by again, pausing this time at the water cooler. Root swallows thickly and sucks her bottom lip as the varsity captain, Sameen Shaw, whips her jersey off. Shaw’s torso is shimmery with sweat and her chest is heaving in her black sports bra. She’s winded, but not as much as the rest of the team. Two strands of hair have fallen out of place and frame her face. She is so small and terrifying and perfect scowling at her troops that Root forgets Mrs. Tay is talking to her.

  
"I’m sorry, what?"

  
"I said if you already got into a college, why did you make this appointment?”

  
Root shrugs a final time. “Just wanted to check in.”

  
The bell rings and students thunder into the corridors. The basketball team will be in the locker room four doors down in about two minutes. Someone should really go and make sure Team Captain Sameen Shaw is properly hydrated...

  
Root hauls herself out of the chair. Smiles serenely at Mrs. Tay.

  
“Good talk,” she says and strolls out.

  
Mrs. Tay shakes her head, bewildered.


	2. chemistry

"Fuck chemistry, fuck chemistry, fuck chemistry” Root mouths silently, over and over again to herself, as the teacher drones on about a problem she has already solved and the tiny air duct over her second-to-last-row seat suddenly stops ventilating efficiently.... No, she has not and will not taken her stupid fucking meds today, thank you very much.

  
Root has only recently discovered the joy of adding “fuck” and all its forms to her vocabulary. In her enthusiasm, she has perhaps over-seasoned all of her conversations with it.

  
Lucky for Root, the majority of her conversations are with herself.

  
The clock says there are a good twenty minutes of this left.

  
“fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck chemistry” she mouths again. This time, possibly, she is less than silent about it.   
Maybe that is the only plus to the face-numbing pills- no accidental fucks given at inconvenient times.

  
“If you hate chemistry so much, why are you here?” Her lab partner whispers.

  
Root ignores him and stares resolutely at the head of the person in front of her.

  
The person in front of her happens to be the answer to that question, Sameen Shaw. Junior. Captain of the varsity basketball team. Five four but so terrifying nobody else even ran against her for it.

  
Sameen Shaw is SO COOL. She rides a battered dirt bike and wears a lot of black and smiles really, really subtly when there’s chaos or a fight or food. She says things that are obviously lifted out of comic books and dumb as fuck action movies. But she says them under her breath, to herself, when she thinks no one can hear. Sameen Shaw gets in secret fights and it is rumored once she lit a dumpster on fire… while Jeremy Lambert was inside it. Sameen Shaw goes by her last name, just “Shaw” and people act like she has a bad attitude because she doesn’t react to things with her face.

  
Root finds all of this endlessly fascinating. She has been innocently ending up in classes alongside Sameen Shaw for two years now. Root stares at Shaw’s dark hair, her neat pony tail and adorable little ears, her strong, solid, back and shoulders. Shaw is wearing her Monday hoody, but its Tuesday, which means maybe she didn’t go home last night.

  
Root casually takes a breath, hoping to catch a scent of Shaw’s shampoo. She already knows what kind of shampoo Shaw uses (she didn’t FOLLOW HER into the pharmacy, she just.. innocently ended up there at the same time). Root might even have a bottle of that shampoo on the back shelf of her closet… for sniffing, not for using. But it smells better with Shaw mixed in.

  
Root keeps a notebook of information about Shaw. Details she has absorbed or bought or stolen and transcribed in a complicated binary code of some sort. The code is so intricate she thinks it would stump anyone, even Harold, the professor who teaches that advanced programming class she’s taking at the university where she is enrolled under her mother’s ID. The notebook is very full. Root doesn’t draw in it, because she’s bad at drawing. But she wants to. Wants to fill it with pictures of Shaw. Shaw running. Shaw reading. Shaw eating lunch.

  
Her lab partner grimaces but tries to hide it by looking away. Root realizes she has been wantonly stabbing at her own hand with her pen for like, five minutes. At least, she hopes that’s why he was grimacing. She knows she didn’t get a chance to shower this morning because her mother’s boyfriend was there last night and she had to be… somewhere else… and there are no showers in the secret warehouse and it smells like mildew and stale beer. Maybe he was grimacing because the stain on her tee shirt really is noticeable up close. Who knows anymore.

  
Root digs her pen into the desk top. This class was a dumb idea. Chemistry is boring as hell.  But this morning Shaw had told one of her teammates “I only came to school at all today because the chem reading was so damn good— well, and they’re serving grinders at lunch.”

  
Root is pretty sure Shaw, for all her badassery, has never actually skipped school. She’s too serious and studious. She is two places behind Root in class ranking. Root knows this because she took a little peak into the system the other day (no touching, just looking). Shaw probably doesn’t even care a out class rank because she’s so cool.  
Yet she loves chemistry…

  
Root would be out behind the bleachers smoking if she had’t overheard Shaw say that. Smoking and working on her drawing skills so she could draw pictures of the way she feels when she sees the tips of Shaw's ears or sees Shaw smile or when Shaw asks her what she got for number 16A on the homework... Her therapist, when she used to go, had said that drawing is a good way to express things you feel. Root had quickly learned that you can't share violent drawings of your mom's boyfriend getting crushed by a truck with your therapist or you will get yourself dosed with tramadalollipop whatever the fuck it's called.

  
The bell rings and her lab partner scurries away. Root carefully folds her papers up and puts them in her satchel. When she turns, Sameen Shaw has turned fully in her seat and is looking at her.

  
With her eyes. and and everything. Root gapes.

  
“Hey Root. You kinda killed eversone on the last exam so… You, uh, wanna work on the review packet with me?”

  
“Sure thing, Shaw. I’ll show you my notes if you show me yours.” Root says and immediately wants to stab herself in the eye.  
But Shaw just snorts and says, “so weird” like it’s a compliment.

  
Root grins all afternoon. Bonus- the grinning super duper creeps out Martine and her prissy field hockey lackeys. 


	3. varsity basketball captain, sameen shaw.

Sameen Shaw loves basketball. She loves basketball because it's a giant screw-you to the odds. 

At five foot four, she's technically too short to even make the team (let alone be the youngest varsity captain in eight years). Then again, she's technically a lot of things that should by rights disenfranchise her from social activities like team sports.

Sameen shouldn't be good at basketball, but she is. She's good at strategy and planning, giving orders, pushing her body, pushing her teammates. 

Her teammates are not her friends. But they are champions. Shaw thinks if they had any sense, they'd be able to tell which of the two was more important.

Shaw doesn't technically have any real friends. She has teammates and classmates, teachers and coaches, doctors and a psychiatrist. She has her mother, an economics professor who is very strict but who she can talk to about anything she wants. She has her father's last name. The biggest piece of him she could keep, stitched into his flack jacket. Shaw uses the last name as her first name, and wears the jacket to bed. Her father would maybe be her friend, she thinks, if he had survived the accident. He's her Schrödinger's friend: as long as he is dead, she will never know if he would have become her friend for real or not. And he will always be dead.

"And how are you familiar with Schrödinger?" one of her ex-psychiatrists had asked. 

"I'm very interested in the nature of death and existence," she'd said. 

The psychiatrist had red-flagged her and her mother had been annoyed, "don't waste their time by teasing them, Sameen. It's important to learn yourself, and that's what they're trying to help you do."

Shaw doesn't care much about "learning herself." She cares about getting into a good college and going to med school and making a difference.  
Smart people can make a difference. Talented people can make a difference. Hard-working people can make a difference.

Shaw knows she's all three, so she sure as shit better make a difference. A big one. 

Hence all the AP classes. Also, AP classes are a good way to not get bored. When she gets bored, Shaw gets tempted to light things on fire. 

... Things like Martine Rousseau's car (because of that time she went to see a movie with her cousin and it was Titanic and they sat a few rows back from Martine and her field hockey friends and Shaw couldn't help it. The movie was just so goddamn stupid. She'd laughed and laughed. And Martine and her friends had turned around and said "what's wrong with you?" and started calling her "freak" in the halls). 

Shaw sits in front of Sam-- nope, not her name anymore, it's Root. Right, Root--- in pretty much all of her AP classes. Last year, Root won some award for an essay she wrote in AP Lit. Shaw didn't take AP Lit because poetry makes her nauseous.

Shaw has grown used to hearing Root talk to herself under her breath. Root probably doesn't realize she's doing it, maybe doesn't even notice that other kids hear, and find it off-putting. Shaw doesn't really mind. 

Root has a major crush on her. Sometimes she'll hear Root whispering things like "she's wearing her Monday hoody today" on a day when Shaw knows she's wearing the same stuff as yesterday. Shaw smirks and pretends not to hear because she thinks Root's conversations with herself are probably intended to be private. Both Root and whomever she's talking to in her head have a serious fixation on Shaw's ears. 

Shaw sometimes makes a point to lazily run the tip of one finger along the shell of her ear, absent-mindedly, and then count the seconds until Root remembers to start breathing again.

She suspects that in some ways, Root is like her. Root never said, never would say, but Shaw knows the signs. Root is totally unsubtly stalking her and Root is involved in some shady internet things and some shady real life things and Root has an impressive collection of knives and fake IDs in her locker (two can play the stalking game). 

Root can look people in the eye and be vivacious and eloquent and bubbly when she talks to them. Root can make words and language do things, can talk in a way that's like classical music or the sparkling rush of a river. Root is really smart and really good at being a person. 

But Root talks to herself, in the bathroom and the courtyard, any time or place she thinks she's sufficiently alone. And Root smirks when she causes trouble or gets in trouble or witnesses trouble. Root's eyes get hungry at the sight of blood and her mouth gets queasy at the sight of intimacy. Root looks like she's malnourished and sleep deprived and halfway homeless most of the time, but her eyes are always on, always bright and sharp and intense. 

Shaw struggles with expressions, with understanding how people do things, feel things. Shaw is Shaw and other people are so .... alien sometimes. She wonders how she can belong to the same species as people like Martine, who care about, just, the stupidest things.

Shaw finds that sometimes it's easier to talk like she's reading her own words off a page, blurt them out fast and move on. Shaw has a lot of grace with her body, but that's about it. But she's smart and she knows her own and she knows Root is like a cat sitting high up, watching idiot mice run into traps and lose their shit. Root is like a sniper. A renegade amoral sniper... Shaw knows Root doesn't give a fuck about people, doesn't care. 

Shaw can't care and Root doesn't care. That is important to Shaw. The similarity AND the distinction.

Root also thinks Titanic is a laughably stupid movie.

... and she's hot. really hot. in a tall, gangly, haven't-quite-grown-into-my-body way. Shaw thinks Root's like an awkward duckling who will wake up one morning and be a fashion model. Shaw often wants to put her arms around Root, and her lips on her skin, and her hands everywhere.

But Root looks at her like she's a young god and Shaw knows enough Greek mythology to know that's probably a Dangerous Thing.


	4. study buddies and quandaries

Shaw decides she must have gotten possessed or something because she keeps finding excuses to talk to Root until finally she turns around after a riveting chemistry lecture and invites Root to study together.

Root looks like she's having an aneurism, Shaw tries not to smirk. 

"Yes, ok, yes." Root says and tacks on something weird and kinky as well. 

Shaw scribbles down her address (if Root already knew it, well, that was another innocent accident and definitely not a flagrant violation of the DMV confidentiality protocols). A couple hours after school, Root shows up at Shaw's house with a slightly melty (but totally salvageable) box of ice cream sandwiches and her chemistry notes.

Shaw eats three ice cream sandwiches and Root eats one and they stick the box in Shaw's freezer. 

Shaw decides she isn't ready to let anyone in her bat cave, so they study on the living room couch. For someone who dresses like a drug smuggler on the run, Root has a surprising amount of poise. She folds her hands carefully in her lap and primly crosses her ankles. 

Root's skin is very pale and Shaw thinks she can see the veins on top of Root's hands. Distracting.

They study almost silently for three hours, Root doing her best not to ogle Shaw in her own house (ok but Shaw is in socks and her feet are so small. How can she jump so high and run so fast on such tiny feet?).

Around seven, Shaw's mom comes home. Root hears the crunch of gravel in the drive, checks her watch, and freaks out,

"I'd better get going. I have to get dinner started."

What kind of teenager is in charge of dinner? Shaw wonders. Root must really love to cook or something

She watches as Root shovels her notes and pens and calculator into her bag.

"But, but wait, the ice cream---"

"You keep them," Root offers, trying to head for the door as quickly as possible without seeming rude.

"We can finish 'em tomorrow. If you want to come over and review more...."

Root nods and flattens her books across her chest. She looks nervous. She's such an odd little person. 

"Really? Tomorrow, really?"

"Well, yeah," Shaw drawls like it should be obvious, "I kind of want to kick your ass on this exam."

Root grins really wide, "You and your fixation on my ass,"

Shaw is speechless. She spends half the night trying to muster up a good comeback. She is unsuccessful. 

But it feels... nice... to be involved in something new. This Root Thing. It feels exciting.

Even if she sort of suspects that Root might steal a pair of binoculars and take up residence in the tree across from her house at some point.

...

A few weeks pass with occasional studying. Root prefers if they study in the library because the school is a lot closer to her house. Shaw can roll with that, especially when her Physics test average climbs from a B+ to an A. 

They don't speak much during school. Well, Shaw doesn't speak much in general. She works hard and plays ball hard and most of the time she's just thinking about her next task and not about who might be sitting behind her or walking by in the hall. Shaw nods at Root when she sees her, and Root keeps stalking her. 

Root shows up at her games. Including away games. She sits in the very back of the bleachers and always leaves right when the game ends. 

Root somehow ends up in the vicinity of Shaw's practices too. And sometimes Shaw finds energy bars in her locker (she can't prove they're from Root. Yet).

Shaw finds she doesn't mind too much. It's a lowkey stalking. Gives her something to keep a look-out for. Keeps her sharp. 

Root keeps blurting out awkward, inappropriate things and Shaw keeps ignoring them. It's kinda nice, takes the burden of doing the talking off Shaw. She decides things are pretty good, apart from the whole desire to jump Root and make out with her face thing. But Shaw's could at ignoring what her body wants, to make it better, so she ignores that too.

But then one day... It's Tuesday and Shaw has a Quandary. 

See, the new season of Mad Dogs Wrestlemania is about to start and she can't watch it alone. If she watches alone, she yells at the tv. If she yells at the tv, Ma comes up to her attic bedroom and makes her do calming breathing exercises. That's been the rule ever since Shaw punched that hole in the roof. Shaw really hates calming breathing exercises. They're bullshit. Even if, ok, objectively they do lower her heart rate and soothe her a little. Still bullshit.

Shaw has to yell at the tv because the fight scenes are lame and the one liners are too chirpy and the commercials make her angry. Shaw is at a point in her development where a lot of things make her angry. Ma says that's ok, as long as she does the breathing exercises.

It's Tuesday and Shaw is chewing on a hotdog and surveying the cafeteria because in about nine minutes Root is going to sneak in, like she didn't just spend half of lunch in the computer lab. Root almost never comes to lunch, but she comes on Tuesdays because the teacher on duty is Mr. Pike.

Shaw is pretty sure Root is running some kind of con that involves Mr. Pike, because she always spends the last three minutes of lunch flirting with him.

Root flirts with everyone. She somehow mixes flirting with manipulating and threatening. It's pretty artful, Shaw will admit. 

Today Root shows up in a swishy skirt that looks like she stole it off a mannequin three times bigger than her and a black sweater. Really pushing the hot goth look these days.

"What?" Michael says. 

"Huh?"

"What about a hot goth? and are you gonna eat that orange jello?"

Shaw pushes her jello cup across the table to him. 

He's not her friend, but he's ok. He sits at her table and eats her unwanted food. He pays for it with slim jims. Shaw needs a lot of slim jims on the daily because Ma is a crunchy organic lunatic who makes her eat KALE and WHOLE WHEAT. Ma has banned slim jims and pop tarts and, cruelest of all, apple jacks, 

Root sees her, makes eye contact, smiles, looks quickly away, looks back. In the span of a micro second it's like she's slipped somebody else's face on over her own.

"Hey, Shaw" Root saunters over, rests her painted black nails on the table top, "what's up? getting in your meat content for the day?"

Root immediately cringes at her own joke, Shaw's willing to bet she's not even aware that she does that. Shaw shrugs. 

"Lunch. You eatin'?"

Root shakes her head, "still working off breakfast."

Shaw knows that's a lie because she saw Root in the library an hour before first period and Root was working furiously on a computer and that was like, six hours ago. 

"You're Daniel's girlfriend, right?" Michael bursts out. 

Root panics (Shaw can tell. Her pupils expand and she darts her gaze around).

"I sure am," she beams, "he's just THE BEST," 

\-- and Shaw has things she wants to say and questions she wants to ask but the bell rings and Root has to sprint away with little more than a "see you soon, Shaw!" tossed over her shoulder.

Daniel? Who the ever living fuck is Daniel.

Shaw finds out that very afternoon. She's biking home from weight training when she sees Root and some small, fat kid from AV club messing with something on the side of the road. Root's lugging her satchel, as usual, but it's crammed full of something. It's so heavy it awkwardly tips her to one side. 

Shaw rolls to stop and pops off her helmet.

"Hi Shaw," Root calls out, when the skritch of tires in the dirt attracts their attention. 

"Hey. What are you guys doing?"

"Just a little surveillance experiment."

Root points to their project. It looks like a rudimentary odometer, wrapped in some kind of camouflage cloth. There's a cluster of wires trailing off of it and into the woods. 

"Tracking speeds?"

"Something like that," Root smiles and stares hard at Shaw, who stares right back. 

The fat kid makes a gurgling noise.

"This is Daniel," Root says, "he helps me with the gritty parts and labor and I pay him handsomely by going around school talking up his manly, well.... parts and labor." She grins widely and Daniel blushes, "beer is also involved." 

Shaw takes it all in, Root's filthy hands and messy hair and how very alert and ON she looks right now.

Shaw flexes, just a little, just the triceps.

"Wouldn't peg you for a parts and labor kinda girl, Root."

Ok but seriously sometimes it's just too easy. Root looks like she might choke.

"I'm, uh, I---" 

Root runs the tip of her tongue almost imperceptibly across her bottom lip as her gaze locks on to Sameen's arms.

"Well," Daniel says, "I have to get home. My dad taped Seinfeld." 

"Nice," Root murmurs, "See you later."

Daniel nods and walks off.

"Did you two walk here?"

"Yeah, it's not far."

Shaw snorts, it's only not far if you live in the trailer park across the bridge. But then she sees that is exactly where Daniel is headed. 

Then she has an idea.

"Huh. So, Root.... You're weird." 

Root's face gets pink again. She looks away and swallows. Shaw has learned that people do this when they hurt inside, from feelings.

"I mean that as a compliment," she rushes, "I'm... I'm weird too, in like, a ... you know, a people piss me off kind of way."

Root scrunches her forehead.

"I mean. I'm terrible at talking to normal people. and you seem really good at pissing everyone off. But you don't really piss me off, so i thought, maybe you wanna come over and be weird with me"

Root stifles a smirk. Almost stifles. Ok, she doesn't even bother trying to stifle it. In fact, she laughs. 

Brat. 

Shaw groans.

"Not like that. I meant. like. I watch Mad Dogs on Tuesdays. and you could tell me about what you were working on in AP Calc today cuz I know you finished the problem set in like twenty minutes-"

"ten"

"yeah, ten. and you could tell me about your secret project and we could like. hang." 

"you want to hang with me?"

Shaw nods.

"i'm weird and you like it and you want to hang with me?"

"i just said that. but it has to be Tuesdays because that's Mad Dog night."

Root cocks her head to one side and studies Shaw's serious face. It's just as attractive as her arms (Root makes a note to put that observation in the notebook).

"if we 'hang' will you let me call you Sameen."

"what? no. why?"

Root smiles, not a predatory smile, or a seductive one, but a sweet, secretive little smile;

"Because i think it might be the prettiest name i've ever heard. and i like that someone so um, so kickass has such a pretty name and i wanna say it."

Shaw wants to punch her a little bit because that was kind of sappy. But she really needs to have company so her mom won't make her do the calming breathing (it's getting sooo old). And the girls on her teams are afraid of her and the boys, well, they just want to fuck. Shaw doesn't want to fuck on Tuesdays. Wrestlemania > Fucking. Also nobody is worthy of going into the bat cave. But she's willing to take a risk with Root. The worst Root can do is flirt aggressively with her and maybe trip over her own feet. 

So Shaw clips her helmet to her bike seat and nods.

"ok, you can call me Sameen. but not in public. and just for today. and don't let my mom hear you,"

"Does your mom not know that's your name?" Root whispers.

Root gives her a smug little smile. Shaw rolls her eyes.

"Come on," Shaw straps the backpack to her bike and they walk in the direction of Everston Ln. "I wanna put some food in my face" 

She glances back at Root who is an unhealthy shade of pale and has the muscle definition of an asparagus shoot. Maybe she wants to put some food in Root's face too.


	5. transcribed from Root's heavily coded field diary

Sameen thinks I'm weird and she wants to be weird with me. Sameen Sameen Sameen. She said I could say her name but only on Tuesdays at her house when her mom can't hear. I have tentatively agreed to these terms with intentions to completely disregard them as soon as possible.

Sameen has an attic for a room. It's very grunge-locker-room chic. Most of her stuff is gym equipment. She has a lot of pictures of dogs. Sameen has a punching bag that looks like a person. I should ask her if she's ever considered using it for voodoo because we could probably make it look like Mr. Lambert really easily. Sameen's room, her bat cave she calls it but I'm not supposed to know that, has a splintery floor and a couch and a tv. She let me sit on the couch but not the bed because it's a waterbed and she didn't want my boot knife to puncture it (how did she know I have a boot knife?).

We watched fighting and yelled at the tv until Sameen's mom came up to Sameen's room and made us do breathing exercises. That incompetent court therapist tried to make me do those. Such a waste of time. 

Sameen is really pretty when she breathes. 

We got distracted from the show again because we had to break down the physics of an impossible table-smash-jumping move that was obviously a rehearsed stunt. Sameen's mom asked me to stay for dinner but I had to get home to cook again for--- 

Today in class she handed me a note with the exact calculations we were working on. We were right; that fight scene was a farce.

I almost got detention for starting an electric fire at Martine's work station, but she stole a whole stack of my fake IDs. That's five hundred dollars. and the fire made Sameen smirk. I hope we get to explore our mutual interest in pyrotechnology together.

I heard Martine tell her acolytes she was thinking of changing her hair color. I booby-trapped my locker so the next person who opens it gets a fine misting of department store anti-theft ink. Hope she likes indigo.

Sameen called me an evil genius :)


	6. gang wars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: bullying, mentions of lowkey violence 
> 
> (because violence between Martine and Root as adults is one thing, but they're underage in this fic so I think it counts as bullying and I don't want anyone to read this and get blindsided)

Root has the unfortunate habit of provoking people. It's not just the muttering to herself, it's the verbal eviscerations that pretty much everyone could do without.

Most people avoid Root because she's weird and unpredictable. Martine Rousseau, however, is not most people. Martine can't stand Root. Root is better than Martine at Math. Root KNOWS THINGS she shouldn't know, secret, personal things. Martine is pretty sure Root is into some illegal shit, but she can't prove it. But godddd does she want to.

Root does things like correcting Martine before the teacher can (which, ok, she does that to everyone... including teachers themselves). She gets in the way of Martine's schemes (like sophomore year when she and her business class were running the school snack store and she and her friends were skimming just a little off the top, and Root "volunteered" to audit the books for her accounting final and got some of them so so busted... so yeah, Root's on the shit list).

Root doesn't mean to piss off Martine Rousseau to quite the extent that she does. She just likes making people squirm, especially people who:

are malicious, arrogant, abusive,  
try to get away with things,  
steal from her,  
make her look bad,  
annoy her,  
are her mom's asshole boyfriend...

Martine fits into all of the first four categories.

The Monday after Root booby-traps her locker, Martine shows up to school with black hair unevenly blotched with dark blue. It's obviously a cover-up dye job...

"so the wrong color for her" one of Martine's crew whispers. Shaw smirks.

"I think she's planning something big in the revenge department." Another girl adds. 

Shaw makes a note to warn Root. Unfortunately, Martine moves too fast.

Shaw is trying to stuff her gym bag in her locker when she hears the thumping.

She hunts around for the source of the noise: the showers are empty, the toilet stalls are empty, the locker room is empty.

The supply closet door has been jimmied shut with a hockey stick. Somebody is trying to force it open from the inside.

Shaw extracts the hockey stick from the lock and shoves open the supply closet to find Root sitting there in the dark, bedraggled and dripping water and what looks like a lot of raw egg, trying to wring out her shoes. Root has wrapped herself in the clean towels kept in there, but she's still shiveing pretty hard.

Shaw raises an eyebrow, tugs the string that switches the swinging lightbulb on, "please tell me you don't have a camera in there. I know my team is all hot n sweaty after practice, but..."

Root's laugh has a weird sobbing quality to it.

"What happened to you? You taking my advice and increasing your protein intake or something?

"I got myself egged. So pedestrian, right?"

Root is in distress. Root's clothes are ruined. She has a bruise on her temple. Shaw is going to beat the SHIT out of Martine. 

"What happened?"

"Oh, you know, some underclassmen wanted to get their target practice in... and uh, I was..."

Shaw levels a stare at Root, unblinking. She shakes her head slowly. Root sighs.

"Martine got me back for the ink. It was a bunch of underclassmen I don't know. I didn't have any details on them and I guess they were too ignorant to be afraid of me. Guess she put a hit on me. Clever girl."

Shaw reaches down and, with her thumb, wipes a streak of yolk off Root's cheek.

"Don't know about that. Fucking with you might just be the dumbest thing she ever did."

Root tries to be blase, scrambles for a witty comeback but comes up empty as she tries to smile like she doesn't feel totally embarrassed and a little sore.

Shaw doesn't really know what to do. She scrolls back through all those painstaking "how to deal with people" conversations with her Ma... ask how you can help. If you can think of a way to help, ask if the person in distress is ok with it... 

"I've got some extra clothes in my locker, if you want." 

"Really?" Root's eyes widen, the humiliation of her situation suddenly washed away by Shaw's kindness.

Sameen strolls back to her locker, grabs her spare sweats, socks, and shirt and brings them over, offers them to Root without a word. 

"Thanks."

"The, um, the hair dryer in the bathroom should take care of your kicks," she gestures at Root's sodden shoes.

Shaw turns back to her locker and listens to the wet little slaps of Root's feet as she heads for the locker room bathrooms.

"Hey Shaw," Root calls, "I'm finally getting into your pants."

Shaw shakes her head and hunts around for her switchblade. She wants to slash the fuck out of Martine's tires or her field hockey uniform or her face. Or... or something.

She ends up going back to her dirtbike and driving too fast into the fields beyond town. When driving fast isn't soothing enough, she pulls to a halt to kick some small trees. 

"Fuck!" She yells down the empty road. Fuck. Because Martine is such an asshole. Because even though Root knew what she was getting into, the sight of her friend all pathetic and shivering in the closet enrages Shaw, fills her veins with what feels like hot steam and blurs her vision. Fuck. Because Shaw doesn't understand how Root has made her care. 

Shaw forgets her breathing techniques, forgets her anger management classes. It's not a dissociative state- she doesn't get those- and she's too cool and mature to call it a temper tantrum. Even if it kind of is, storming around and punting rocks as far as she can into the fields. 

When she gets home, having missed dinner by an hour, her Ma makes her sit down and talk. Her Ma makes her admit what happened (because her Ma might be strict about food and listening to your body, but she doesn't judge her... so Shaw feels like maybe it's ok to say what went down). Her Ma is gentle and steady, reminds her about what's important. About how anger is a temporary state but actions have consequences, and how she's not supposed to be violent to people even if they hurt her friends. Shaw edits this information as she takes it in. Not allowed to get caught being violent, she tells herself, don't be traceable. 

It's dangerous ground, and it goes against the five years of ethics classes her Ma has made her attend. But Shaw wants revenge, wants it so bad she can feel it. 

Feel it.

Now that's new.

Shaw takes a deep breath, then another, then she starts to plan.


	7. hangin' out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's a mini chapter :)

After Shaw finds her in the locker rooms, they make TV Tuesdays a regular thing. Root comes over every Tuesday from then on and they hide in Sameen's bat cave, watching taped episodes of Wrestlemania so they can play back and mathematically dissect the stunts at their leisure. Somehow Root has made the show even better, by bringing together Shaw's love of loud violence and her love of math.

Root brings her applejacks and poptarts, fruit by the foot, and all the kinds of snacks she shouldn't be eating but adores. Shaw reasons her metabolism and physical conditioning will probably never be this good again in the future so what's the harm?

Root just likes the pure abandon on Shaw's face when she eats things she likes. 

Root has no interest in tv, but she doesn't hate Wrestlemania. She likes the smell of Sameen's room and how now she's not nervous around her anymore. She likes sitting next to Sameen and feeling her excitement as she yells at the tv.

She even likes yelling at the tv now Sameen's mom has given up on the breathing exercises. 

"You're taller that her," Sameen's mom says, "so if she tries to punch the ceiling..." 

"I'm the varsity team basketball captain. Root couldn't stop me if she tried." 

"and sweetie, nothing in this world would persuade me to stop you... if you tried." 

"I promise not to punch anything."

Her mother nods and leaves them with a tray of celery sticks and peanut butter. Sameen promised... Sameen keeps her promises. 

One afternoon Shaw is sitting close to Root on the couch, their kneecaps pressed up against each other. Shaw stares while Root rewinds and replays the same five second clip over and over. Root is all concentration, her hair pulled back and her lower lip fixed gently under her top row of teeth, eyes bright and fixed on the tv. Shaw stares like Root. She looks at Root's cheek bones, the slope of her nose, her ears. She looks until looking isn't enough anymore.

"Root."

"mm?"

Shaw pokes Root on the arm, begging her attention for a second. 

"why don't you have a boyfriend? or a hook-up or something?" 

It's a dirty trick of a question because Shaw is pretty sure she knows the answer. But Shaw isn't sure what question she actually wants to be asking, so she goes with an obvious one.

"Daniel's my boyfriend," Root says absently.

"i mean a real deal thing. like someone you to go to parties with and do stuff with."

"i hate parties."

"don't you want to, like, screw around though?"

Root's eyebrows scrunch together like this is some foreign concept to her.

"I don't do that with boys." she puffs.

"but it's fun."

Root shrugs.

"You've never done it before."

Root swallows and refuses to look away from the tv, even though it's paused now. She shakes her head.

"You didn't want to or you couldn't find any suitable material?"

"both I guess."

"maybe you just don't like boys."

Root straightens her back. Her face wipes itself blank. She half turns to Shaw, then.

"It's not boys," she says flatly, "It's people."

Shaw's not sure if Root means people as in humans or people as in people, like the hordes they go to school with. Maybe both. 

"Misanthropes can still get in on you know."

"Sameen Shaw. Are you propositioning me for a round of I Hate Humanity Sex?"

"Psh," Shaw shoves half a poptart into her mouth, "you wish." 

Shaw picks up the remote and hits play. When she returns it to the coffee table, she lets her hand rest on her knee, the side of her little finger wedged gently against Root's knee. Root doesn't say anything (but she's definitely going to journal about it later).

"Soooo," Shaw says a while later, "I came up with a plan for getting revenge on Martine. How good are you at forging people's handwriting?"


	8. secrets and sleepovers

They stay up late planning. It's Root's first time ever collaborating with someone on a project of the covert, illegal nature. It's thrilling.

Root decides this could be really good for their relationship. That's what she's calling it now. She has four pages in her code journal filled with rambles about it. And a drawing. The drawing is not very good and it doesn't look like Shaw, but at least it looks human, which Root decides is an improvement. 

Root never took herself for the arts and crafts type until she had the brilliant idea to make her own home-drawn erotica, featuring herself and Shaw. The only hitch in this plan has been her woeful lack of artistic talent. Root wishes she could just... code some suitably R rated dodles into existence.

Harold- Professor Finch, says Root has a sort of intuition about code. He looks at her sometimes like he's a little afraid of her. She doesn't have quite that same intuition about relationships. People, people are easy, most people. But Shaw, this thing with Shaw, it's brand new. She isn't as certain.

"Going to start phase one of the graffiti tomorrow," Shaw announces, showing Root her line of near-perfect Martine forgeries.

Root smiles. She likes the dangerous devious side of Shaw. It reminds her of the legends that float around school about Shaw beating the crap out of a bunch of people a few years ago. Root has had no luck finding any gory details: apparently underage fight clubs don't advertise online.

"Did you really used to be in a fight club?" She asks, taking a break from her notebook where she too is practicing Martine's handwriting.

Shaw finishes her fifth page of Martine signatures, doesn't even look up. "A fight club?" 

Her knuckles itch at the mere mention of it. Her body remembers the bolts of adrenaline, the symphony of body and strategy and speed, the smell of blood, the rush of getting the shit knocked out of her, knocking it out of someone else. What a fucking thrill that was. 

Basketball can't quite replicate that.

Shaw nods slowly.

"I wouldn't exactly call it a fight club. It wasn't official or anything, a few pick up fights here and there. Just for fun, the summer I turned sixteen." 

Root chews on the end of her pen, "Were you any good?"

"Yeah. Won enough cash to buy my bike and cover the insurance for a year."

Root stares. Shaw is so small, she must be a really good fighter to have won all those fights. Mmm, Shaw all sweaty and ruffled, maybe a little bruised and banged up, with her eyes dark from a fight... That's so hot... 

"Why'd you stop?"

"Well, my Ma found out. She wasn't too happy." 

Shaw finally stops writing. Root is staring at her, rapt, fascinated, unblinking. Like she wants to crawl into Shaw's lap and get her head stroked and ears scratched. Like a cat.

"How'd she find out?" Root whispers.

"She saw all the bruises and cuts on my face and stuff. Asked me if I was picking on kids, or getting picked on, or having social problems. All that Troubled Teen stuff. I told her I was just doing martial arts but, uh, she didn't believe me. Followed me to a fight night. Dragged me home and cleaned me up."

She can still remember the tension and fear and panic radiating off her Ma, the gentle way she patched up her split lip and bloody cheek like Shaw's face was made of glass. Hearing her crying herself to sleep down the hall after. 

These details stand out because somewhere deep inside her Shaw believes that she should feel guilt. She hurt her Ma. She wanted to feel bad about it, but she just couldn't.

"That was cool of her." Root interrupts her thoughts.

Shaw smiles. 

"Yep. Except she whacked my ass the next morning and made me promise not to fight again, so I had to start fixing bikes for money." 

Root pales, "she HIT YOU?!"

Shaw shrugs. 

"Well, yeah. I'm not always a cerebral learner, sometimes I need a few knocks for ideological osmosis to kick in. But you know the really cool part? She didn't drag me out of my fight 'til after I won, and she let me keep all the money."

"But... but... she hit you."

Shaw chuckles, "yeah, she did, a little bit. Aw, Root, no, it's ok. I was a lot younger and anyway it didn't hurt, not as much as the first minute of that fight."

Root frowns. She doesn't look convinced. Shaw runs her thumb over Root's hand. 

"Honest, Root. You've seen my Ma. Arms like baby carrots. She couldn't have touched me if I wasn't ok with it."

"No..." Root shakes her head, "I still don't like that."

Shaw shakes her head, Root's cute when she gives a damn about things.

"Sometimes it takes my body a really long time to catch up to my brain, and I needed to learn that underground fight clubs aren't the best way to make money because I'm kind of ... dangerous with my fists, you know. And now she just makes me do those freaking breathing exercises all the time, cuz now I've learned not to punch people's heads so much."

"Nobody should ever hurt you," Root insists. 

Even though she would VERY much like to see Shaw punch somebody in the head. 

"Nobody ever does." Shaw says, and when she does, she feels just a little bit of regret. And she doesn't know why. Maybe it's because Root is staring at her so intensely with open affection on her face, for the millionth time. 

"You want some poptart?" Shaw offers.

"It's kind of late for sugar- oh, damn, it's after eleven! I should get home." Root grabs for her shoes.

Ok technically "home" that night is the warehouse again. Things are touch and go at the Groves residence and Root doesn't fancy playing a game of dodge-bottle with her mother's projectile empty pill bottles. Not when the warmth and light of the Shaw residence has made her feel warm and fuzzy and languid.

"Just crash here," Shaw offers, like it's just... the other half of a poptart and not an invitation to sleep in her sacrosanct bat cave.

"Oh. That would be... I guess I could," Root says, then, possessed by one of her mischief demons, she adds, "Let me get my ballgag and handcuffs."

Shaw rolls her eyes. "You're sleeping on the couch."

"Kinky."

........

Root stretches out and curls her toes. She fell asleep on Shaw's couch. She was allowed to stay, INVITED. This is a shocking new development. 

Root thinks about the warehouse, the thinning tarps over holes in the roof. She's not stong enough to fix them herself, and with winter coming in--- it's not going to be a viable crash pad much longer. She sighs. Soon she'll be back to sleeping in her mother's house all the time, no escape. But last night... last night she felt safe. And this morning she has a blanket that smells like Sameen.

Sameen is bundled up in a pile of blankets on her bed. Root desperately wants to get up and go look at her, just for a minute, just to memorize what her sleeping face looks like.

Root doesn't really want to get up and go to school, but soon her watch says six thirty and Shaw shuffles out of bed and downstairs to the shower. Root snuggles down into the couch and pretends this is her all the time bed. And the plaid shirt over on the floor is one she and Shaw discarded in the throes of making out. And the rumpled blankets on Shaw's bed are from... other things. 

Root wiggles her toes again. What would it feel like if Shaw touched her? Would it hurt? Would it feel good? Would it be like those relaxed moments in the warehouse, when she knows nobody can get in, and she lets her mind and her hands wander? Touching Shaw would probable be better because Shaw has pretty skin and hair and eyes and ears and shoulders and even the way she walks is pretty. and she smells good, even when she's all sweaty after practice, ESPECIALLY when she's all sweaty after practice. 

Root smiles into her blanket. Someone as cool and pretty and talented and smart as Sameen Shaw is friends with her. How is it even real life? 

"mmm it's all yours" Shaw says, emerging from her shower with one towel around her waist and scrubbing at her hair over her face with another.

Boobs. 

Root doesn't say it out loud but only because her body is frozen. The boobs, Shaw's boobs. No, not boobs: breasts, her glorious breasts, they are right there for a split second and they are full and perfect and Root wants to die right then and there in that holy moment.

Shaw turns away to rummage in her dresser, ostensibly oblivious. Root has SO MUCH to add to the notebook this morning.

Shaw slides her sports bra and tee shirt on, grinning as she does. Root is going to be so fucked up all day long now. 

"You want a protein shake or an omelet or anything?"

"No thanks. I um I think I will go and shower for a minute."

Shaw nods. Hah, cold shower probably.

"I'll leave some stuff on the couch for you to wear if you want."

She heads downstairs and makes breakfast, hers and Root's. Root looks better when she comes down and snags an apple off the counter. She finally looks like she's rested and properly washed. She looks so small and young, scrawny and in need of love. She reminds Shaw of an abandoned kitten. 

"Got a game on Friday" Shaw says around a mouthful of eggs.

Root nods excitedly, "against St. Germain"

"yeah. We're going to win by at least five points or my whole team will be training over the long weekend."

"Your idea?"

Shaw nods, "running suicides til they drop." 

Root smirks, bites a wet juicy chunk off her apple, "how delightfully cruel, Sameen."

The way her name rolls off Root's tongue like it's coffee or caramel or something dark and rich and velvety is kind of wonderful. Shaw blinks. Root blushes. 

"Not as sadistic as locking Jason Greenfield in the hydroponic shed on the roof."

Root's smirk turns into a full smile, "I told him he could come out if he apologized."

It's moments like this that Shaw wants to lean across the counter and kiss Root. But Root likes her. Root would get hurt feelings. Even if she's like Shaw, she has feelings. Big loud messy ones, probably. Shaw does not want to weather the hurricanes that are Root's feelings. Or hurt them. 

But she does want to kiss Root. It bothers her that kissing and making out and sex have to be so imbricated with emotions. She feels cheated, somehow. 

"Sooooo," Root drawls, "you going to brag to all your teammates in the locker room about how you bedded me?"

"Technically I couched you. And no. It would make them fear me less."

Root smirks, "or more."


	9. teen cliche (part i)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teen Shaw "hooks-up" with a guy (the details of this hook-up are unspecified, all we know is that at some point Shaw stops because of Ethics Or Whatever). Don't hate me for this.

If her Ma finds out she's out dancing and not actually doing homework with Root, she's going to lose her dirt bike and maybe a limb. Or two. But Shaw doesn't care (one perk of being Sameen Shaw: virtually no fear of consequences).

The club is stifling and dark. It smells like beer and sweat and cigarettes. But the band playing is something not awful and Shaw has an itch that needs scratching. Hanging out with Root has given her a lot of itches lately.

The itch to follow Root home just to make sure she actually lives in a house, the itch to pick Root up and toss her onto the bed and leap on in after her, the itch to lean in over their bio homework and press her lips to Root's. 

There's a more primordial itch, too, one that demands thumping and bumping and writhing in the dark. Shaw usually gives in to those desires immediately, but this thing with Root. It's different. 

Shaw has decided to clear her head of the foggy lusty crap with a good old fashioned hook-up. Sameen Shaw, problem solver. Sameen Shaw, not going to make Harmful Decisions because of dumb hormones and big brown eyes and long delicate limbs and a naughty, threatening smile, and--

She still has her fake ID from back when she was in that fight club, but even though she got into the bar, she doesn't really feel like she belongs there.

Shaw knows she's hot enough. Getting in is never the problem, fitting in, however...

Everybody is wearing tight, sparkly, dark, dressy, sexy stuff. Sameen is wearing a grunge tee shirt and black jeans. The same clothes she wore to school (what? she's not about to get a whole other set of clothes sweaty just for a couple hours of... whatever this is). 

Shaw sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. She looks around for a table. Morris Nyugen is supposed to meet her here. Morris has three things Shaw greatly appreciates in a person: a solid, muscular athlete's body, a car with room to roll around in, and a girlfriend of his own so he won't catch feelings for her. 

Morris rolls up at ten, with two beers. He offers one to Shaw but she shakes her head. He shrugs and pounds the first, then sips the second.

"You sure you'll be able to get it up after two beers?" Shaw shouts over the music.

Morris grins, "I'm an 18 year old guy, I could get it up blackout drunk, stark naked, in a blizzard."

"Ew. Let's go." 

They slip out through the crowd of smokers. Morris unlocks the back of his station wagon (his mom's station wagon) and Shaw shoves him down.

"Holy shit." 

"I know." 

Sameen is hungry and Morris might as well be a bacon burger with cheese. Morris gasps because Shaw knows what she wants and goes for it.

Things are getting good. and grindy. and pressurey. 

"Squeeze my ass," Shaw demands.

"Uhh ok." 

Shaw rolls her back. It feels good, it all feels good. Really, really good. 

Until Shaw sees a pink jacket on the back of the seat right in front of her and remembers that Morris has a girlfriend.

She was supposed to be working on assessing situations this week. Determine who will be affected by your actions. Will it be positive or negative for them. Janet Hollins, Morris's girlfriend. She will probably be hurt in the emotions. Cheating is wrong. Root. If Root finds out she would be...? Shaw doesn't know. Root's a little bit of a dark horse.

"Listen, Man, this was uh, excellent and all, but. I gotta jam."

"Already?"

Shaw doesn't say anything until just before she closes the door behind her, "Curfew."

Morris nods. Shaw might be fun to roll around with, and smart, and a formidable athlete, but that girl is Weird.

Her Ma totally makes her sit down and Talk About Curfew when she gets home. 

"I was having sex," she shrugs, "It won't happen again."

Her Ma raises an eyebrow, "You'll never have sex again?"

"I mean I'll pick someone who can finish before I have to get home."

Ma hands her a cup of herbal tea, "I hope you and Root are being safe. You know, women can get--"

"Root?"

"Yes, Root, the tall shy drink of water who lives here three days a week."

"Root and I don't have sex." Sameen is indignant. "We watch tv and do calculus, and physics. There is no sex." 

Her Ma frowns. If they're not having sex up in Sameen's room on the nights that Root stays over then what ARE they doing? And is Sameen oblivious to the way Root looks at her, hangs on her, talks to her? Well, social cues and empathy are things Sameen is still exploring....

"You're not grounded this time, but please be more careful about time in the future. Or find a phone and call me so I don't lose sleep. And Sameen, figure out what exactly you want with that girl before she gets hurt."

Shaw says goodnight and soon she's kicking her boots off and tossing herself onto her bed. Morris's lips were firm and his jawline was kind of perfect and those abs when she ran her hand up under his shirt.... But it's not the thought of Morris's perfect bod that Shaw keeps coming back to as her heart rate refuses to settle. It's Root and her smirks and her dorky, weirdly kinky flirtations. 

Shaw is no stranger to people wanting her body. But Root wants... something else. Root seems to want, like, friendship but also maybe Other Stuff. Root talks a big game. Shaw is more and more tempted. Also annoyed because all of this chivalry bullshit, this not macking on Root business, it's been about protecting Root's feelings and not hurting her and now it looks like Shaw's gonna do that anyways? Not cool.

Shaw scowls. Life was easier when there wasn't an unhinged stalker genius getting her fingerprints all over Shaw's everything. Ok it was also a lot more boring and she was angry more. But boring and angry were easy. These new, weird, ineffable things, they are not easy. 

Shaw sighs and digs around for her dumbbells. Tonight's a good night to burn off steam the old fashioned way: arm curls til midnight. She finds her dumbells buried under a small cascade of fruit by the foots that Root left last week.

Shaw sighs again. At least Root brings her primo snacks along with the ... confusion.

At school the next week, with her own riling tensions burned off (or at least dampened down a little) Shaw thinks she might be more aware, like she can sense a residual manic energy radiating off of Root.

"What's up with you, Eeyore? Someone pour Jolt in your Wheaties?" Shaw asks at lunch (they eat lunch together now, under the stairwell of the art wing, where kid usually go to smoke or make out. They both agree it's a good place to get away from the noise of all the teenage chattel).

Shaw eats her third sloppy joe and hands the organic mac and cheese her Ma packed for her over to Root.

Root smiles sloppily.

"That's gross though, Sameen, I don't eat Wheaties," Root deflects, digging into the meal. Shaw thinks of stray cats, again.

"You're like, buzzing, over here."

"I had a very exciting weekend."

"What'd you do?"

"I worked on my computer project. I sort of had a breakthrough."

"Tell me about it." Shaw settles back, lets her sandwiches digest and studies Root's profile. She's got nice ears. They'e mousey, in a cute, lickable way...

"Well, um, I'm taking this class on the side," Root shares, "I just finished my semester project and my instructor said I could take the next section in the spring. Well I wasn't sure how to pay for it, so-- is this boring?"

"No. Keep going." Shaw licks some sloppy joe sauce off her hand.

"So I got hired by one of the other students who knows I'm good and I might be on the verge of getting a like a regular job with computers, if my projects keep going well. I get to modify data and hack firewalls and stuff. It's THRILLING, Shaw. It's like, when I'm working, I forget everything else and I'm... one with my task."

Shaw understands. "Feel that way when I fight, or, yknow do math. or science."

Root grins. She's pretty sure she's in love. Shaw listens to her and Shaw talks to her and Shaw doesn't think she's boring and Shaw gave her food and Shaw is looking at her again, amused kind of, maybe, because she's catatonic again oops-- 

Root clears her throat.

"Anyway. How was your weekend?"

"I went to Key Bar Saturday night. I thought it would be fun, but it was boring. I left early."

Root wants to ask so bad, but she doesn't trust herself, but fuck it, she needs to know.

"Find anyone special to play with?"

Shaw bumps her shoulder.

"You're really invested in getting me laid. But, yes. Morris Nyugen and I ... we uh, hung out for a while."

"Morris Nyugen?"

"Yup."

"In the bar?"

"He has a car. It was fun." 

An almost awkward silence hovers over them.

She watches Root closely. She needs to know how Root will respond. She doesn't really know how to say 'What do you feel about that' because that's a lot like a Conversation and Shaw doesn't want to corner herself into a Conversation.

Root does her best to look like a supportive friend and not a crestfallen love interest. Her best is lacking today.

Root finally bites her lip, hard, and nods.

"Fun" she says brightly, mostly to her bowl of mac and cheese. "I mean, not hot and heavy post game almost getting caught in the locker room fun, but I can see the draw."

"Oh my god, you were covered in egg- we weren't even--"

"Did I or did I not get out of my clothes and into your pants?"

Shaw pokes Root in the ribs, "you're really annoying."

"I know," Root smugs. 

Smug is a verb when Root does it. Shaw has never known anyone else who can turn smug into a verb. But then there's Root. Root smugs a lot, especially after awkward dirty comments.

It's not cute, not even a little, not even when she smugs for no reason and Shaw catches her eye and *knows* she's just had some kind of devastatingly clever thought.

She takes a breath, watches Root tear open a tiny paper pepper packet and douse her mac and cheese.

"Root."

"Yeah?" Please. Root silently begs, please please please don't say you're going out with Morris Nyugen now.

"Why, uh, why do you like to hang out with me all the time?"

Root sits stone still. She thinks hard, play it cool Root play it cool, say something charming and witty and suave like James Bond, sexy but not gross sexy, whatever you do, don't blurt-

"Well obviously I'm trying to seduce you,"

Shaw barks a laugh, "and how's that working for ya?"

Root shifts her feet just a bit closer to Shaw's. She answers the question for real:

"Same reason you hang with me I think. People suck but you don't... but I bet if you did suck it would be epic," They both cringe at that, "and you're one of the few people I can have an intelligent conversation with. You don't talk my ear off about shopping or boys, you don't update me incessantly on your position in the stereotypical adolescent kaleidoscope of feelings."

"Feelings."

"Yeah."

Shaw laughs (Root wants to record the sound, bottle it, have the image of the sound waves inked onto her skin, Shaw's laugh is dry and rich and no, Root is not swooning).

"You like that I don't talk about feelings-"

"I like that sometimes you seem like you don't even have them. Like you've evolved away from that particular irrationality."

Shaw scoffs. Sucks in a breath, goes for it.

"I uh. I have this thing. The way I am. It's not... "

"If you say 'like other girls,' I will tase you."

Shaw groans. 

"That's teen cliche. Do I look teen cliche to you?"

Root gives her a slow checking out, "uh uh."

"I don't feel a lot. Hunger, anger-- yeah a lot of times, anger. Randy, tired, um, bored. Excited. But that's about it. I'm missing almost all of the colors of the emotional rainbow."

Root wants to kiss her. Right there amongst the cigarette butts and sloppy joe wrappers.

But there are too many unknown variables and Root can't possibly project the outcome of such a move. There's a whole probability and outcomes section in her diary about it.

So she chews some mac and cheese. 

"You say that like it's a bad thing. I don't think it's a bad thing,"

The stupid bell rings. Root passes Shaw a physics problem she wrote while thinking about her. It's like a poem, but less stupid, less wanky, and less gross. 

"Made you this."

"Neat." Shaw grins and scrambles off to poli sci, giving Root another little tap-punch thing on her arm.

Root has decided to interpret these gentle little punches as kisses. 

She waltzes into study hall with a forged hall pass and writes three pages in her code journal about the progress she and Sameen are making, even if Shaw did randomly do stuff with stupid Morris Nyugen.

That Friday morning, someone super glues Morris's wiper blades to his windshield. Root looks a little too happy for Shaw's liking all day. 

"Terrorist," she whispers when Root sits by her and Michael at lunch.

"It was a station wagon, Shaw. With wood paneling. Teen cliche."


	10. teen cliche (part ii)

The next week, they have exams. So. Many. Exams. 

Shaw ignores the whispering behind her. Even if it is so close it tickles the back of her neck.

"Shaw."

"Hey, Shaw."

"Saaaaaameeeeee---"

"Do you need something, Miss Groves?" Mr. Pendeleski interrupts Root from the front of the room.

"So many things," Root mumbles under her breath. Shaw hears, and smirks down at her test.

"I was asking Sameen for a pen, but I guess she didn't hear me." 

"Didn't you read the instructions I've had on the board? For the last week? BRING EXTRA WRITING UTENSILS--"

Mr. Pendeleski goes off on a power-trip rant about how Root isn't prepared and maturity and responsibility and blah blah blah.

Shaw scribbles in her last answer, and without really thinking about it, adds "fuck you" in Farsi after her name.

Shaw slides her hand behind her back, hands Root her pen.

Root grins. The pen is warm from Shaw's hand and a little bit chewed on. 

"Oral fixation?" Root murmurs.

Shaw flips her off behind her back.

"Teen cliche," Root mumbles. 

After they pass up their midterms, the room buzzes with an almost palpable aura of relief. It's officially Thanksgiving break. Shaw cracks her knuckles and sighs happily. Root's totally stealing her pen (like she cares). 

"Any big plans for break?" Root sails along beside her, almost close enough to touch. 

Shaw nods, "Thanksgiving Eat-a-thon, sleeping, ugghh that dumb psych project, and we've got a game on Sunday afternoon." 

"Sounds wild."

"What about you? Long weekend is just about long enough for a little kidnapping and ransom."

Root cackles, but she isn't sure what to tell Sameen. Truth is, she finally, FINALLY, landed herself a grown up hacking job and if all goes well, she might cash out with enough money to get a car or rent an apartment (if she can configure a solid false identity for herself). 

"Just some nerd stuff, you know, me and a computer for hours and hours." 

"You got a computer?"

"Public library" (two towns over, three hours on the bus, but still). 

"Well, uh, I'm pretty sure my mom is getting me a computer for Christmas and if she does, you could use it."

"You? A computer? Can you even type?"

Shaw lightly taps Root on the arm, a pretend punch, "Ass."

"You and your fixation on--"

"Seriously, Root, you got plans for Turkey Day or no?"

Root nods convincingly, "yup. Big family plans, cousins coming in from out of town. Overcooked meats, sweet potatah pie, drunken arguments about sports, all that golden stuff."

"Make sure you protein up then. You'll need your strength for all that... typing and stuff."

They dawdle at Shaw's locker, Shaw pretending to organize the books she's leaving behind, Root leaning up close like she doesn't want to say bye yet. Shaw clears her throat. She wants to keep hanging out, but her therapist expects her at four and how do you tell the girl you've sort of adopted as your stalker-maybe-future-make out- buddy that you see a therapist to keep you from blossoming into a America's Next Ted Bundy? 

Root saves her the trouble.

"I better go, the bus waits for no man. Or woman. or, whatever. Maybe I'll see you over the break?"

"Yeah, maybe. If I hear the clack of roller skates under my window in the dark of night, I'll know it's you."

Root laughs. "I'm going to get a set of real wheels soon enough." 

"Sure. And when you do, I'll be the first to end up in a tarp in the trunk."

"Shaw! I would never," Root pouts, then really blatantly checks out Shaws, up and down, twice, "You're backseat material for sure."

She winks and decides to leave in the wake of her clever remark, silently high-fiving herself (that one's going in the notebook). Shaw shakes her head and watches Root trot off to the bus stop, one boot lace untied and her tangled hair fluttering behind her. 

Shaw finally decides which books to bring home over break: calc, physics, and bio, obviously, but English can suck it. She wads Waiting for Godot into her locker, knocking loose a voucher for a free cone at Dairy Palace.

"In case you want to lick something sweet over break" is scrawled on the back in a verrrrry familiar handwriting.

Now that's definitely not hers. Shaw's willing to bet if she dusted it for prints, it would lead her straight to Root. Shaw smiles a little, Root is persistent and a half. They're going to have to talk about this, at some point. A talk that may lead to making out (or more). 

Shaw thinks about Root all afternoon. While she listens to her therapist talk about navigating healthy social interactions, while she squeezes in a sunset jog, while she shoots layups in her driveway, while she watches Wrestlemania alone in the dark of her room, idly munching honeycomb cereal.

Shaw doesn't MISS Root, but... it wouldn't suck if Root was there.

Shaw assesses what she knows:

Root has feelings for her: check.  
Root wants to Do Stuff Of The Physical Fun Nature with her: check.  
Root seemed kinda ok when Shaw mentioned Morris: check.

Maybe Root would be cool with a "friends who lock faces on the regular" sort of arrangement...

Shaw makes a decision.


	11. thanksgiving games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Root breaks some laws, is maybe a little too fond of starting fires
> 
> Shaw wins a game but doesn't do team things
> 
> They lowkey miss each other but not a lot don't make it weird ok

Thanksgiving isn't all that important to Sameen and her Ma. Their nearest relatives live in Milwaukee. They went to visit them once, a fee summers back, but they never went again: Sameen's flat affect made her cousins... uncomfortable. 

Anyway, the American holidays were always more important to her father. Shaw remembers him telling her the story of Thanksgiving when she was only little, about how the Natives saved the butts of the starving Europeans who didn't know how to hunt, farm, cook, or shelter themselves. Thanksgiving is about being glad for when you have opportunities to help others, he had said. 

Made a lot more sense to her than the paper hand-shaped turkeys and bullshit they'd tried to teach her in school. White people.

So now she and her Ma make Turkey and cornbread and potatoes... and a bunch of traditional Iranian dishes because pumpkin pie is weird and why the heck would you make a casserole out of green beans?

Shaw likes eating. She likes the house full of cooking smells and doing all the chopping to help her Ma. Sharp knives, fast chopping, set a good rhythm, enjoy.

They eat their food on the couch, plates propped on their knees witj a football game on the tv in front of them.

Shaw sometimes wonders if her Ma gets lonely, with only a teen sociopath and long stretches of silence for company.

"This is nice," she says, "I like Thanksgiving."

Her Ma smiles. Shaw rips into her turkey leg. Her Ma is such a good cook.

Saturday, the morning of her away game, Shaw's Ma hands her a paper bag as she's about to board the bus.

It's too clunky to be a snack, so she opens it as soon as she's seated. It's a walkman! and batteries and her three favorite cassettes! It's not even her birthday. 

Shaw smiles out the window at her Ma as the bus pulls away. She spends the whole ride blasting her ear holes with Pro-Pain and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's a good day.

Her team wins their game by a high margin. Shaw only gets caught body-checking someone once. After the game. Rachel Campbell, center forward of the Lubbock High Leopards, comes over to where Shaw is sitting on the bench- alone- retying her sneakers.

Rachel Campbell has short fluffy blond hair and she smiles a lot. Her smile is sincere and friendly and this makes Shaw a little uncomfortable.

"Hi!" Rachel says, taking a seat close to her, "you played a rad game out there."

"thanks."

"My team is going over to Dairy Palace for ice cream in an hour. Do you want to come?"

Shaw shrugs, she left her coupon at home... "Have to ask my team."

Rachel laughs, "Your team is welcome to come, but I was mostly inviting you."

"oh." 

Sameen doesn't know what comes next. Friendly people are confusing. What are they hiding? What do they want? (Root is really obvious with what she wants: zero confusion).

She downs the rest of her water bottle and walks away. Rachel calls something after her, a 'see ya' or 'good game' or something. It's no use worrying about this girl's feelings, she pretty much never gets it right. Rachel will be fine. 

Shaw ends up waiting in the bus instead of going out with her team. She has bio homework and she wants to listen to her walkman. Her Ma packed her mad tons of leftovers anyway. Shaw feels good. Winning a hardcore game is fun, maybe not as fun as throwing physics problems at Root's gigantic brain and watching her bounce their solutions back moments later. But still, a good sweaty old time.

They get back around 11, laughing and cheering and talking the whole ride (except Shaw. She has a pen light and her book and her music). Ma is waiting in the school parking lot to drive her home, eager to hear her recap of the game. 

Shaw eats second supper and sleeps for many hours. And listens to her Ma being proud about her all the next day. 

She also sneaks off to the grocery store to get some twinkies because her Ma raided her stash while she was away and she cringes to think of the sad sad fate of her beloved sugar and refined carbs morsels.

All in all, not a bad weekend. It will be good to tell Root about it, especially the walkman.  
....

Root has her own Special Things To Do over the long weekend, starting right away on Wednesday.

She squishes down a sigh as she trudges away from the school. Morris Nyugen is throwing a party this weekend and she forgot to ask if Shaw was going, now that she and Morris have gone deep sea diving in one another's mouths or whatever.

Root knows from her... observational activities... that Shaw occasionally hooks up with people. Usually not more than once or twice with the same person. Root knows Shaw's like her. An outsider. Not in the teen drama "I'm sooo misunderstood" sense of the word, but it's like everyone around them runs on gasoline and she and Shaw are burning diesel. Or rocket fuel. 

Ok, it wasn't creepy that she one time staked out Martine Rousseau's post-sports-banquet party because 1) Martine's house had a tree fort in the yard facing the rec room window and who builds something like that if they don't want to get spied on a little bit and 2) she didn't think Shaw would even be at that party, she was just reconnaissancing for burglary purposes... But then she'd seen Shaw and David Hurlboker sneak out onto the porch and get all handsy and she'd suddenly lost interest in stealing Martine's brother's sega.

Root bites her thumbnail and ponders these matters as she stops to check her license plate tracker. She told Daniel it was part of a science project on the median speeds on Route 9. But it's not, it's part of the Research. She's not entirely sure what her anonymous contact wants the plate data for, but it's keeping her bank account this side of the black and herself in food and clothes, so she keeps her questions to herself.... and maybe does a little off-book research of her own.

It's getting colder, still, Root notices as she wraps up in a jacket she got from the church lost n found (not to mention the wallet she claimed from the pocket of the guy who stood a little to close to her ass the whole bus ride back from the lost n found) packs a backpack with some extra clothes and toiletries, a tool kit, and a small blanket too. Part of the public library narrative she left out of her conversation with Shaw is the part where she plans to hide out in the attic of the library until after closing so she can work through the night. Too bad Shaw's attic is her bedroom. Root would have been into a little nocturnal staring down from above. Like a ghost. Or a bat. Bat ghost.

Root has near perfect SAT scores, yet the connotations of "boundaries" still elude her.

The bus ride is long and boring, but Root does her best impression of a girl going home from boarding school to visit her family, so nobody asks her any questions. Breaking into the library attic through the foam ceiling tiles of the bathroom is downright thrilling. The job goes without a hitch, a little untraceable movement of some numbers, a few carefully constructed rabbit trails- Root has fun. She even makes some notes of things to incorporate in her advanced programming semester project, which is due in a couple weeks.

Root finishes at four am, the morning of the Friday after thanksgiving. The library doesn't open 'til ten, so she climbs back up into the attic to catch some sleep.

She catches just a little too much sleep: when she wakes up, the library is closed. And she's locked in. And it's her third day without real food.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuck" Root sings to herself as she works at jimmying open a window and fall-scramble-climbing out.

Root assesses the damage, a few scrapes and bruises, a shallow cut on her ankle. All in all, not bad, considering she just earned herself a cool three grand.

The bus ride back is greasy and smelly and awful but Root doesn't care. She has money and money is freedom and freedom is getting out of this godforsaken town in the future and out of her mother's house soon.

Root doesn't go home (because her mother's boyfriend is supposed to be there). She goes to the warehouse. It's definitely too cold to be there, but Root has a sleeping bag and a winter coat. She knows how to build a fire (and has the police report to prove it) and she wants to sleep somewhere she feels safe. Tomorrow, she will break into the school and get a leg-up on her homework. And shower. and use the industrial washer and dryer in the basement to wash her clothes. 

Saturday flutters by. The janitorial staff doesn't come by on the long weekend. Root is warm and cozy and wraps herself in fresh towels from the sports closet while she works. Saturday night, she watches from the window of the library as the basketball team get in from their away game, cheering and loud and bright. She sees Shaw's small figure with a large backpack slip away from the team and get into her mother's car. Looks like they won. Shaw's walking with her victory stride.

"I missed you," Root whispers. 

The words cloud up and fog the glass in front of her. She makes a pact with herself to win Shaw over by Christmas break. They need to be making out (ok, she has never made out with anyone but Shaw has a really lovely mouth and Root has a lot of pent up feelings and impulses and desires). 

When she finally gets home, her mom doesn't ask where she was. There's a MacGyver marathon on, her mom sleeps peacefully on the couch. Root covers her with an afghan and feels a little bad that she's still tempted to just pick up one of the throw pillows and.... 

Boyfriend is gone (so is half her mom's pain medication, but Root decides that's none of her business). There's half a chicken in the fridge and a whole bucket of mashed potatoes. But the matches have been removed from the kitchen. And her secret lighter from the top of the fridge. That's not really fair. She only melted the STUPID video tapes last week, nothing good...

Root hums a little song to herself as she tucks herself into bed. She has a lot to be thankful for this weekend.


	12. teen cliche (part iii)

"How did you get detention again? Does basketball mean nothing to you anymore?”

Shaw’s coach is not happy. Shaw does her best impression of contrition.

“Sorry, Coach Carter. But Mr. Greer mistook me for another student who was graffitiing some girl’s locker. And I couldn’t contradict him, because, well, you know—”

Mr. Greer, the French teacher, who pronounces his name “Gruyy-errr” like the cheese because he’s a complete twat, has a complex. A complex that has alienated him from all his students and peers. A complex that convinces him he is Always Right. 

Coach Carter can’t say she HATES Mr. Greer (because you can’t say stuff like that in front of students).

She grits her teeth, “do you have an alibi?”

“I don’t know when the graffitiing happened. But I was with Roo– uh, with Sam Groves for all of lunch. We have AP Chem together.”

This is bullshit. Shaw did the graffiti. and it wasn’t a random girl’s locker. It was Martine Rousseau’s locker. Because that BITCH had fucked with Root a few weeks ago– well now she was gonna burn for it. 

Coach Carter sighs. In the past month, someone with handwriting SUSPICIOUSLY SIMILAR to Martine’s own handwriting has been vandalizing the lockers in the school. And the front hall mural. And the trophy case. The vandalism really peaked over Thanksgiving break. Now Coach Carter is no detective, but she has a feeling that trouble-maker Martine is up to some Punk Ass Shit. 

“I’ll talk to Mr. Greer. You go change. And if I’m not on the court by three, start warm ups.”

“Yes, coach.” 

Shaw saunters down the hallway in one direction, Coach Carter marches away in the other.

Root emerges from her crouched position behind a trashcan, clutching the earring she had been pretending to pick up off the floor for the last ten minutes.

She hastily pulls out her notebook and starts scribbling in code. There might be a goofy drawing of Shaw as a knight on a horse in it (the horse is actually a dog because that’s Shaw’s favorite animal). Root has had to move on to a second notebook. The first one filled up really fast once Shaw started actually noticing her and talking to her and studying with her. Root makes a note to corroborate that she and Shaw were studying during lunch. If anyone asks where, or for how long, or what exactly they were studying, she will smile widely and stare at them until they go away. 

Root fiddles with her new bracelet. It’s a braid made from a shoelace that snapped during Monday's practice and was taken out of Shaw’s basketball shoes and tossed away. 

Root just likes the color, lime green. That is all. 

The next day in Physics, Root hears that Martine got busted for damaging school property and has a week of in-school suspension. 

The day after that, she tries to stuff an entire case of Shaw’s favorite beef jerky strips through the slot in her locker.

“What are you doing?” Shaw asks, emerging from her Latin class.

“I was… I was, uh…. feeding you?”

“Ya already keep me flush in snacks. Man, Root, if you wanted to feed me, ya could have asked me to Burger Barn.”

Root forgets to breathe. Shaw loves Burger Barn. She goes there sometimes on weekends when she isn't training. Root knows this because she used to work the drive up there. Shaw doesn't know this. Shaw would always come in and sit at a booth in the very back, order the same thing, and read her biology textbook without making contact of any kind with anyone.

And now she is offering the dream of going there, with Root. Probably not with the biology book.

Shaw digs in her pocket and pulls out a crumpled piece of orange paper. It has a nasty looking calculus problem on it.

“Think you can handle this?” She asks, “I have a feeling the answer should be around seven digits.”

Root nods. This is weirdly specific information, but it's the most Shaw has ever said to her in public in school so her brain and mouth are not working together right now, so ok. Ok. breathe. Ok. She subtly reaches into her satchel to feel around for her inhaler. 

Shaw nods, “ok, cool. See you.” and steps away, but then she calls over her shoulder, “Neat bracelet, by the way.”

(She knows. She totally knows.)

That night Root solves the calculus problem. She saves it as a special after dinner treat for herself. Makes herself wait until all her other work is done and then unfolds the slip of paper. 

It takes her nearly two minutes because it’s a good hard problem. She smiles. No wonder Shaw needed help.

The answer confuses her. It is exactly seven digits. How did Shaw know that if she couldn’t solve it to begin with?

Root checks the teacher answer key to their textbook (because of course she got a copy). It isn’t a problem from anywhere in the book. 

Oh. It’s a phone number. Or it could be…. Root slips into the living room (her mom is gone tonight, but one can never be too quiet, too careful, or too invisible). She dials the number (her fingers. are not. shaking). 

“Hello?” It’s Shaw. Not Shaw's mom, Shaw. Which means Shaw was downstairs, near the phone. Not upstairs in her room. 

IT’S SHAW. ON THE OTHER END OF THE PHONE. BREATHE, ROOT, BREATHE.

“Do you want to go to dinner with me?” Root blurts. 

“Yes. Yes I do.” 

“Okay cool see you in Chemistry. Because we have that together,” Root giggles, “we have chemistry together.”

“Yup.” Shaw says.

Root hangs up.

She does not pass out. 

She does not swoon when Shaw turns around in her seat in AP Bio and says, "Dinner Thursday?"

Root nods. Her mom's boyfriend is out of town all week, so she doesn't have to stay at the warehouse. Which is good. It gets colder and colder in there as November wears on.

Thursday Shaw shows up at school on the bus. 

"No bike?" Root asks, meeting Shaw in the art wing.

"Bike only seats one."

They don't go to Burger Barn. They go to the pizza place down the road from the school. It has better ambience anyway. Shaw shrugs when Root questions her, but Root doesn't eat red meat, much less burgers, and Shaw doesn't want to admit she knows that.

"Burger Barn is teen cliche. Do I look teen cliche to you?"

Root shakes her head. Definitely not. Not in her sports bra and sleeveless basketball jersey, with her toned arms and her new jeans. Shaw looks incredible.

"Yeah," Shaw grins, "that's what I thought."

Root suddenly feels a little nervous. She's wearing tattered pants and the same shoes she always wears, a sweater that has seen better decades, and the glasses she KNOWS makes her look like a librarian in training. 

But Shaw side-eyes her and smiles like they're sharing some kind of secret.

They eat pizza and talk about math- argue about math. Shaw hates when Root is right and Root is almost always right. Shaw teaches Root how to cuss someone out in Farsi. Root offers to hack the school database and turn Mr. Pensediski's name to Mr. "Pencildick."

When the check comes, Root has her hand already halfway in her bag. She's ready to dig out some of her carefully hoarded Emergency Fund, which she broke into especially for today.

Shaw just shakes her head softly and takes the little plastic tray.

"You can let me pay." She says, "it's not anti-feminist. because you bring me food all the time."

Root blushes and swallows and looks down at her drink. When she blushes, Shaw notices, it's mostly just the tops of her cheeks and the tip of her chin that turn pinkish. It's really cute.

Shaw can't walk Root home because one, she doesn't know where Root lives and two, Root says they live on opposite ends of town. So they decide to say goodnight in the restaurant parking lot.

Root worries that she's made it awkward by wanting to pay and nobody has ever gone on a date with her before and she doesn't know what to do. Does Shaw want to kiss her? Are they dating now? What should she do? 

"I wanna walk you home." Shaw says abruptly, when they get to the middle of the parking lot.

"It's two miles. I was going to get the bus."

Shaw doesn't argue. Why argue when she's going to do whatever she wants anyway? Waste of breath. But Root must read her silence for exactly what it is. She tips her head to the side and studies Shaw, nods once and decides. 

"You can walk me to the school."

It's only four o'clock because they didn't even plan their date for the right time. So when Shaw and Root reach the school, people are still milling around and trickling out to the parking lot.

"This is where I get off," Root says, the laughs, "but not on a first date.. even though technically we did already spend the night together."

They both cringe. 

"Do you even have a filter?" Shaw asks.

"I must have swallowed it at a very young age."

Shaw rolls her eyes. Shaw has never been on a date before. Not where you ask the person and you pay and then you actually talk to them and stuff, because obviously that would require talking. 

This is the part of a casual chilling out sesh with someone where she and the other person would end up making out or having sex in their parents' basement or the back of a car (or under the bleachers, behind the school, whatever).

But Root is different and Shaw knows that. Shaw's good at reading people. Root can spew flirtations and come-ons til she's blue in the face, but she's super into Shaw and also totally a virgin and Shaw's not... entirely sure about that.

So instead of making a move, Shaw grabs Root's wrist, rubs her fingers back and forth over Root's pulse point a few times. Her skin is warm, her heartbeat is jumpy. 

Root smiles wide, plainly amused, "That's not how hand-holding works," 

"Yeah, but... now you can tell yourself you scored some skin on skin friction with me."

Root gapes. Shaw gently lets her arm go and pivots on her heels, lightly punches her on the shoulder, and heads off in the direction of her house.

"See ya," Shaw calls. 

Root winks, well. tries to wink, and blows her a dramatic kiss.

That girl is so weird, but so…. something else.

When she gets home, Shaw finds a green post-it in her pocket, it has a calculus problem on it. 

It takes her fifteen minutes to solve. Damn. 

It’s Root’s number. 

“Hello?” Root answers, ok it’s the payphone across the road from her mom's house, but she wasn’t about to tell Shaw that.

“Hey. You wanna plant some trash in Greer's classroom this weekend?”

“I’ll keep lookout for you.”

“Cool. It’s a date.”


	13. geography (where we at, bae?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Root and Shaw figure out if they are dating or nah

Root runs through back issues of women's magazines, she even yahoo searches tips on "how to kiss."

She practices on her pillow, but it's not very forthcoming with the feedback. 

She practices a kissing face in the bathroom mirror, mouth slightly open, eyes half lidded, soft, relaxed.

"You look like you're having an aneurism," Shaw comments when she catches Root practicing with her reflection on a fish tank in the bio lab.

Root pouts, "I don't look cute and kissable?"

"Not when you're doing that, you look like a concussion." 

Root folds her arms and frowns for the rest of class. She's never going to seduce Sameen with this face. 

 

Shaw doesn't need to practice, Root stabs her desk with a scalpel. Her lab partner (her third one this semester, they keep getting scared and asking to switch), glances nervously at her and cautiously pulls all her stuff over to the far corner of their table.

Shaw is sexy and perfect and has full, pouty lips and she's kissed at least five people to Root's knowledge. Shaw might be a year younger, but she's done All The Things. Root has done None Of The Things. That's a lot of pressure. 

Root can hack a computer network but she can't hack a kiss. Sweet Valley High did not prepare her for this. 

She finds some solace in Doogie Howser fan fiction forums.

Words like "passion," "seizing," and "burgeoning" appear often. Root gets the idea that maybe she's supposed to attack Shaw with her mouth... but Shaw would probably sock her if she did that.

Every time she and Shaw are in the same room, Root thinks about touching her, even if it's only her hand on Shaw's arm, and she thinks about kissing her. Her body has its own agenda, it pulls her closer and closer to Shaw. Her heartbeat trips along and she blushes for no good reason. 

And Shaw, if she notices (she must notice, right? it's so obvious) never says anything. 

Root thought maybe after their date they would kiss (maybe she would press Shaw up against the side of a car and there would be big swooping feelings like a shower of rose petals and Shaw would grab her butt a little) but Shaw just lightly punched her on the arm again and waltzed off.

In general, nothing much changes after their date. Martine finally comes back to school and is bitter about the mark on her permanent record. She has no way to prove the sabotage, but Shaw and Root both watch their steps around her and her gang. 

Martine starts dating Jeremy Lambert, which is gross. He has a stud in one ear and he gets henna tribal tattoos on his arm. So tacky. Shaw wants to gag every time she sees their gross faces locked together in a slurpy mess.

Speaking of faces locking together, Shaw isn't sure if she and Root are dating or what. She's a little confused because honestly she thought this was what Root wanted. When a person gets all giddy and wide-eyed and intense staring and they sit just a little too close and they flirt up on you all the time, doesn't that mean they want to date you?

Trust Root to confuse all of Shaw's understanding of patterns of human behavior. 

Root sits on the bleachers at Shaw's practices and stares so hard that Shaw's pretty sure her eyeballs are going to dry up and crack.

"I can think of much more fun ways to get you all hot and sweaty, Sameen," Root says when Shaw emerges from the locker room (Root refuses to ever enter the locker room, since the egging business, it is not a Safe Space). 

Shaw side eyes Root. Root side eyes Shaw. Shaw is pretty sure their minds both went to the same place. She smirks.

"I dunno, Root. A good old athletic fight kinda gets me wired, you know?"

"I took engineering shop. I could wire you better."

"You didn't take it. You got kicked out the second week for making a weapon with the power tools."

"It wasn't supposed to blow up!" 

"Uh huh."

Root hands Shaw a gatorade, "Got you something to wet your lips."

OH SHIT, ROOT, she cringes at herself, that wasn't supposed to be-- 

"I mean to hydrate," Root powers on, digging in her bag for a power bar, "and some protein too."

"Awesome," 

"Hey, Shaw," Jeremy Lambert calls, as the chess club nerds flood the hallway, Martine and Jeremy joined at the hip among them, "your girlfriend keeping you your toes there? Literally?"

"Fuck off Jeremy, she's not my girlfriend" Root says brightly, patting Shaw's back to keep her from choking on her drink, 

Jeremy screws his mouth up like he has a super bitchy retort to that, so Root says, "I really don't think people who scored a 600 on their SAT verbal and then told all their friends they got a 700 should be attempting to make puns." 

Jeremy blanches and scurries away. Root smiles at his fleeing back: it is the smile that means she's glaring on the inside, and possibly Gesturing.

"I'd tell you to glue his windshield wipers together, but...."

"I already used all my glue driving away your other suitors."

"You coming over tonight or what?"

Root sighs, "I wish I could, I have work."

Root is very vague about her work. Shaw knows it's something to do with computers and the internet, but beyond that, not so much. It means Root disappears after school sometimes. And vanishes for a couple days in the middle of the week every so often. But she always reappears, homework done, chapters read, papers written, projects done. Shaw doesn't worry, but, it grumps her up, ruffles her fur, not to have Root around. Root is hers now. She wants to keep her close. 

They keep doing math problems together, when Root is in school, and hiding homemade equations in each other's possessions like easter eggs. 

Shaw brushes by Root in the hall and the next period Root finds a fun little physics problem in her pocket. She grins and presses it to her lips, regardless of the fact that Sameen is right there in class with her and could see. 

Shaw unwraps a snickers bar to find a meticulously laminated strip of paper, with an calc problem on it, resting atop the chocolatey goodness. She shakes her head, impressed because she bought that bar at the school store and it didn't appear even slightly tampered with and HOW DID ROOT DO THAT?

Root still talks to herself, but now Shaw catches her murmuring things like "so cute in those jeans" and "scrumptious butt" and "Root, mistress of dooooom" (as she steals the dissection cat from the bio lab and takes it off for a proper burial). Shaw half wonders if Root mumbles some of the things she does for Shaw's benefit and not just because of whatever is going on on her head.

Shaw drags Root to her house after school, most days, when there's no basketball practice or therapy sessions or mysterious work commitments in the way. They sit on Shaw's couch and do homework, sharing the walkman.

Root migrates more and more into Shaw's space, or maybe Shaw migrates into Root's. Either way they end up close, every time, shoulders and legs bumping into each other, leaning close as they work on problems, faces inches apart. 

Shaw feels like she's playing lesbian chicken with Root. Like eventually one of them is going to crack and kiss the other one. 

"I, uh, I got you a cupcake," Shaw offers on the day of Root's college programming class final. Shaw drives Root in her mom's car and hits up a bakery while Root breezes through her exam. 

The cupcake is chocolate. It has green frosting. Root clasps her hands in front of her and bounces like she's just been given a diamond ring. 

"Oh, Sameen!"

"Your blood sugar's probably dropping," Shaw deflects.

Root eats half and insists Shaw take the other half. Shaw gets frosting on her cheek, she's a messy eater and it's a big cupcake. 

Root wants to lunge in and lick it off. The thought of licking Shaw's face rocks through her whole body like a wave. She blushes as Shaw scrubs at her face with a napkin. 

"What? Did I miss some?"

Shaw has gone from sharing her space, to sharing food, to sharing her toys with Root. Her toys consist of her sega, access to the walkman, her knife collection, one antique grenade, and the moon shoes she puts on to reach high shelves. 

The walkman is the best, in Root's opinion.

Shaw has a few tapes, her consistent favorites. Root, who has no walkman or radio, owns a massive collection of tapes. Some of them she plans to sell.Most of them are stolen. Root was a little bit of a klepto when she was 14 and 15, but she's 18 now and she's mostly outgrown it. Burning things is way more fun than stealing them. It's closer to art, really. 

Ok, now she steals things like data and small chunks of money from bank accounts, using the internet instead of her actual hands. But it's a lot less "shopliftery" and a lot more "secret agenty."

Harold-- who has told her NUMEROUS TIMES to call him Professor Finch, but somehow she keeps forgetting-- says that coding is a sort of art. Root believes that. But it's more than art, it's the creation of a kind of sentience, like being a god, almost. 

Root sits on Shaw's couch, right up close to Shaw. She can smell Shaw's bodywash and her post-workout sweat. It's very exciting. They listen to Rammstein because Root likes it. Root likes really hardcore music. Shaw doesn't much mind either way. 

She's too busy stuffing her mouth with gummy bears. Root has really upped her candy game since they went on that date. Root sits so close that Shaw can practically feel it every time she blinks. It makes Shaw's body feel all languid and mushy. She steals a glance at Root.

"You wanna go out again on Friday?"

"Go out?"

"Yeah, like we did last week."

"Hmmm." Root sucks on a red gummy bear, "I don't know."

Shaw hits pause and looks up from her homework, puzzled. "What?"

"Well, what's the point? We have to hang out around people and buy food. I'd rather watch Wrestlemania with you."

"But I thought... you like me, right? Like, that was a date? Wasn't it?"

"Sure, it was a date. It was fun too, but it was more fun when we stuffed Greer's classroom heater with garbage." 

Root picks another gummy bear out of the bag. This one is yellow. She eats them in color spectrum order. 

"I like YOU, Sameen. and... I don't know, I like doing our kind of things."

Our kind of things. Shaw smiles at that. 

"So we don't have to go to restaurants or bowling or movies or stuff like that?"

Root feels her heart thump itself into a frenzy. Shaw has thought about taking her to the stereotypical date places? Shaw has thought about this, is willing to do it...

Before Root answers, Shaw continues, "we just keep doing what we're doing... what's the difference then?"

Root stares at her face, the strands of hair framing her cheeks, the little crinkle of confusion between her eyebrows. Root swallows. Her hands suddenly feel cold. This is it, the fanfiction did not prepare her for the way she's shivering nervously. She leans in a little.

"The difference is, we could do things like this..." 

It takes Shaw a second to realize Root is trying to kiss her, so she twists a little. Root doesn't close her eyes like other people Shaw has kissed. Shaw smiles and angles her face toward Root. When their lips finally meet, it's soft and sweet, but Root has an edge to her. Her kiss is soft but her grip on Shaw's shoulder is tight, like she's trying to ground herself. 

Sameen's face smells like gummy bears and her lips are firm but not aggressive and SHE DOESN'T EVEN SHOVE ROOT AWAY SHE JUST LETS THE KISS GO ON. Root thinks she might die from joy. Shaw rests her palm on Root's side. It's small and warm and the nervousness is gone now, Root just feels like she's flying. 

Shaw breaks the kiss after a moment. "You're not breathing."

Root gasps in a breath. and then another.

"Were you holding your breath the entire time?"

Root nods and fumbles in her bag for her inhaler. 

"I was... nervous... and also, how do you breathe while you're kissing someone?"

Shaw laughs. Root frowns. "Your nose, Root, breath with your nose."

"Oh." Root sulks, "I want a do-over."

Shaw rolls her eyes, "ok, come here,"

She arranges herself and Root on the couch so there will be less uncomfortable twisting and angling. She puts a throw pillow between them because she doesn't want to get lost in a moment and touch somewhere Root isn't ok with. Root watches, wide-eyed.

"Ok, make eye contact and then move in slowly." 

She draws Root close until their faces are inches apart. Shaw's eyelashes flutter, Root licks her lower lip in anticipation.

"Do I ask for permission?" Root whispers.

"You have my permission," 

Root brings their lips together again, and this time it is soft and warm and slidey. Sameen's hand rests over her heart. She runs her thumb over Sameen's cheekbone. It's so nice. 

They might kiss for a minute or an hour. All Root knows is, Shaw's mom calls up that dinner is ready and they have to detach from each other's faces. Sameen's lips look swollen. Her chest is heaving. Root's hair is kind of a mess. They both grin at each other. 

"So I guess we're dating?" Shaw says. This is what people do, right? 

Root scrunches her nose. "Can we just be Sameen and Root who make out and stuff?"

"You don't wanna date?"

"Teen cliche."

Shaw agrees. "Ok, no dating but yes kissing?"

"Yes."

"I'm not telling my Ma or she'll think we're having sex and I'll never hear the end of it."

Root blushes and suddenly needs to inspect the floor instead of looking at Shaw. She'll need to buy a new notebook to write all of this in. 

"Come on, Ma made ribs. I know you like watching me eat them."

"You're an artist with your mouth."

"Oh my god shut up, it's so much gayer now that we kissed."

Root smirks. Shaw lets her hold her hand all the way down to the kitchen. 

 

Shaw's Ma absolutely does not notice and will not notice until her daughter says something. Even if the edges of Root's mouth are suspiciously red. And her hair is a mess. She joins them at the table for a quiet meal.

"Sameen are you kicking me?"

"Hwu?" Shaw asks around a mouthful of ribs.

Root blanches and sits very still in her chair. Shaw's Ma very diplomatically ignores this.

Shaw scowls at Root. 

"You have sauce on your chin, Sameen." Root says primly.

Shaw tries to kick Root under the table but .... her legs are too short and she can't reach. Dammit. 

Root makes a note to buy a new notebook on the way home. She has SO MUCH to discuss with herself.


	14. transcribed from Root's heavily encrypted field diary (part ii)

Sameen and I have officially consummated our relationship.   
By mouth.   
Through the exchange of kisses.

Sameen is an excellent kisser. I went from having been kissed zero times to, like, 22, all in one night. 

We were sitting on the couch listening to some ambient, romantic music. No one understands the gritty depths of love like German metal bands. Sameen asked me if I wanted to date her, in the way that other people date. I said no because movies are boring and bowling is a great way to acquire a communicable disease and eating at restaurants is expensive and crowded. I would rather go orienteering or commit some light GTA or watch her do sports.

Sameen seemed relieved when I told her we weren't going to try to reprogram ourselves to be like other people. It's beautiful that Sameen and I think the same things are stupid and annoying. 

I was touched that she was willing to think about doing saccharine coupley things for me, though.

Then we kissed. I kissed her. She was being very respectful of my boundaries. But really I wouldn't mind a little invasive maneuvering on her part. 

I was afraid when I kissed her, but Sameen said it's ok to be afraid. It means you care. But Sameen says she can't care about things, does that mean she never gets afraid? I know she cares about me. Sameen wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of fucking up Martine for revenge if she didn't. So dreamy.

After the first kiss I wasn't afraid. Because Sameen was looking at me and her eyes were gentle. They get gentle sometimes, it's very sweet. Smaeen has such an honest face, I love how she doesn't make expressions. It makes her feel so much more real to me. She let me be in charge of the kiss because it was my first one, I think. It got really good when she showed me how to breathe and kiss at the same time. That way you know the light headedness is from the kissing and not from the oxygen deprivation.

The kissing was very nice, but very gentle. I want Sameen to be aggressive, like I know she can be. Like press me up against the couch and pounce on me kissing. I'm going to have to prove to her that I'm not some shy training-wheels-on person. I want to kiss like a tornado, fierce and intense. 

I think the gummy bears were slowing her down. Next time I'll feed her licorice. It's the candy of seduction.

And she put a pillow between us, like I wouldn't notice?! I swear for someone who wasn't brought up in the church, Sameen is very Catholic sometimes. I tried to nudge the pillow onto the floor but she wouldn't let me. Very PG. We'll have to do something about that. 

I want to touch her butt. 

I want more of her hand over my heart, and similar places.

I want to kiss lying down so there's no height difference.

Also touch her butt, if she wants. 

I accidentally molested Mrs. Shaw's ankle with my foot at dinner. Sameen tried to kick me under the table and ended up bumping her knee. She insisted it was fine, but I didn't believe her. After dinner I made her put ice on it and elevate it while I read aloud to her from The Art of War. Then I fed her some gummy bears, to expedite the healing. She fell asleep. I covered her with the jacket that lives on her bed and a blanket. It was very domestic. I could very easily go into medicine (if only that didn't mean dealing with so many people).

I kissed her forehead when I left, that's ok right? 

Mrs. Shaw wanted to give me leftovers to take home but then I would have had to explain where they were from so I had to say no. I was sad about that. Mrs. Shaw is an excellent cook.

I got an A in Harold's class. I think he might offer me an internship in the summer. He's mentioned it a few times. I know he wants to keep those nervous flighty eyes on me... I don't want to think about that though. The summer means graduation and endings and right now I'm in the middle of the best beginning of my life.

I also think he knows I hacked his school accounts. I didn't touch anything, I was only looking. 

It's not wrong if you only look.

I may have invited myself into the school office record system and tweaked Jeremy Lambert's behavioral file. It will take him forever to convince the principal he isn't one demerit away from expulsion. I don't care either way about Lambert. But. He's been trying to pick on Sameen. Because of the Martine thing. I'm doing it for his own good. If Shaw ever got her hands on him....

She would probably pound him good. Fists flying, ponytail messy, he would try to fight back but end up on his face on the ground with her holding his arms behind his back..... Maybe she'd thrash him with his lacrosse stick ^_^ that's not a euphemism. 

I really want to watch Sameen deck someone. I think it would awaken my sexuality even faster.

Today Martine tried to take Shaw's walkman out of her bag during AP Psych. Unfortunately, some noble classmate with a slingshot hit her on the hair with a chewed up chiclet. Poor Martine's hair, it does seem to make enemies.

Sameen glared and stuffed her walkman into her hoody. I wish Sameen would let me lock her in the greenhouse. Just overnight. Not even for a whole weekend... Worked on Lambert.

Sameen and I are going to test drive used cars this weekend because I have savings now and my fake ID is finally perfected. When I have a car, we can joyride and make out on the hood and go wherever we want. We'll be like Bonnie and Clyde, minus getting gunned down in a car.

Sameen says I should get a jeep. That's very butch of her.


	15. wheels

It's two weeks until Christmas break when Shaw takes up bicycling to school, to add in an extra workout and to build resistance to the cold.

One morning she almost swerves off the road when a clunkety 1987 blue Subaru drives too close and honks at her. Someone whoops lasciviously out the driver's window,

"Nice legs!"

"Fuck you!!" She yells back.

The car rolls to a stop a few yards ahead of her.

"If you like, but I really think we should talk about our feelings first." Of course it's Root behind the wheel. Smug ass.

Shaw peers into the car, which is as practical as it is ugly. The back seat is stuffed with black trash bags full of stuff. There's a green blanket folded up on the passenger seat, and two coffees in the cup holder. The tape deck has been ripped out and a tangled jumble of colored and metal wires pokes out of the hole. 

Shaw nods in approval. 

"Yours?" 

"The registration documents are possibly fake, but the insurance payments are tragically real."

"Still haven't figured out how to break and enter Nationwide, huh?"

Root rolls her eyes. It's called hacking. She's told Sameen this. Albeit abstractly, and not in relation to how she has so much burnable cash.

"Want a ride?"

Shaw almost asks "you, or the car?" but changes her mind last second.

A few minutes later, her bike is in the trunk and she's drinking one of the coffees. 

"What did your parents say when you brought this home?"

Root grins. It's the grin that tells Shaw that Root is about to lie to her. Heck, Root's parents probably don't know about the car. If Root even has parents.

"They were very happy for me. Now they don't have to get me that pony I wanted for Christmas."

Truthfully, they don't even know she has a car, the car lives in the commuter parking lot at the end of her road, but Sameen doesn't need this information. Shaw drops it, and Root is grateful.

 

"I bet you want to take me to make out point this weekend."

"That is so Teen Cliche, Shaw." Root frowns dramatically. "I want to take you across the state line so you can help me pick up something."

Shaw grins. "Contraband, huh. What are we getting? Fireworks? Beer? Knives? A snake? A bucket of snakes? Explosives?"

Root smiles smugly and says nothing. Shaw ventures guesses until a few minutes later they pull into the school parking lot.

"It's only 7:22." Shaw puts her coffee cup away.

"I know."

"I don't think the building opens to students til 7:30--"

But Root has unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over and grabbed her face so Shaw quits worrying about getting inside the school and focuses on Root's tongue in her mouth and Root's hand on her boob, and the smell of Root's hair. 

Shaw and Root are both late to first period, for the first time that year. 

Root knows teaching is being done but her mind is buzzing and her heart is tripping and her whole body feels like it's made of music. Sameen feels so good. So warm and firm and sexy. Dangerous and thrilling and new, but at the same time, safe and like home. 

and her biceps.... 

Shaw actually pays attention and takes meticulous notes. She couldn't care less about macro economics, but this could be on the exam, and if she stops and lets her mind wander, it will wander to Root and her dorky smile, insistent kisses, and the way she's always so grateful for basic human contact and affection. Her mind will wander to next week when Mrs. Shaw goes to Toledo for a conference and has made it clear that Root is allowed to stay over. Her mind will wander to thoughts of Root sleeping on her couch, or better, her bed.

The bell rings and Shaw makes it out of class with four pages of notes and one very chewed up pen. 

Martine is waiting for Root by her locker. "Hey. Nice chapstick. I saw Sameen Shaw wearing the same kind." She tosses out. 

Root shrugs. "Shaw who?" 

"You know what I'm talking about. I saw the two of you necking in the parking lot this morning. So are you like... a couple? "

Root tips her head to one side and studies Martine. For a long time. It's creepy. It gets even creepier when she smiles broadly, showing her teeth in a predatory way that makes Martine think of scheming dragons. 

"I think it's adorable that you're so interested in me and my love life, Martine," 

She strokes Martine's arm condescendingly, "But sadistic and uncreative blondes aren't really my type."

Root trips away with her calc book, a steaming pile of Martine glaring after her.

She finds Shaw under the back stairs at lunch. They sit side by side quietly, not touching. Root pulls a lighter out of her bag and amuses herself by lighting long twists of notebook paper on fire and holding on to them until the flame licks all the way down to her fingertips. She tries to hold on longer and longer every time.

"You're going to set yourself on fire." Shaw observes.

"Mmm, I'm not that kid of flamer."

"Yeah, you are."

Root grins widely, Shaw decides it's both creepy and sexy. Especially when Root's holding a strip of fire like that. 

"Am I getting better at kissing?" Root blurts, halfway through lunch. 

Shaw shrugs. "It's not like you were bad at it."

"But-"

"You're getting better at kissing me." 

"If you win against St. George's next week, I'll show you something new I learned." 

Shaw sighs, unwrapping her deli pickle.

"Is it page twenty seven of Cosmo?"

Root blushes. 

"You left it folded open to that page in my bathroom. And I don't like biting. At least not on my face." 

Root blushes harder. 

"You kiss just fine Root. Ok? and I wanna kiss you, not some magazine person."

"Ok." She says but her voice is kind of small. Shaw reaches over and prods Root in the thigh with her pinky. 

"Anyway, Haley Bourges twisted her ankle and without her playing St. George's will be a walk in the park." 

"You better sweat extra hard at practice, though, just to be safe."

Shaw rolls her eyes again. Creeper.

"Coach Carter said she'd write me a boss letter of recommendation next year."

"Of course she will. You're a legend." 

Shaw doesn't ask what Root is doing next year. Root doesn't offer. She wishes Sameen would ask though. She wishes she could say, wishes she could vocalize how she is going to big cities to do big things, that her future is unfolding rapidly, almost too fast, and she wants it to involve Sameen. 

Shaw finishes her pickle and nudges Root again. "Stay over this weekend." 

"But our roadtrip-"

"We can go from my house. My mom is leaving Friday for a week." 

"And she trusts you not to burn down the house?"

"hm. Pretty sure that's more your thing."

Root laughs. Sameen's mother is super strict and weirdly trusting at the same time. On one hand, Shaw has mentioned getting whacked for trivial things like petty violence, but on the other, she has virtually no curfew. 

"Anyway you stay over plenty when she's there, I guess her not being there won't make a difference."

"You're not going to attempt to use the situation to seduce me into awkward but beautiful first time sex?"

Shaw stares at Root. She had thought about it. About the sex part and the first time part and the awkward part. Her mother being in the house or not really wouldn't make much difference. Because it has to be right for Root. And while Root has gotten more comfortable and self-assured with the kissing, how does she know if Root is ok for other things? There's no textbook about this and there really should be. 

"You're the one who does the seducing." Shaw finally gruffs. 

Root smiles fondly and then ruins everything by trying to pet her hair. Shaw squirms away until the bell rings.


	16. potentially explosive and decidedly sticky situations

One of the (many) perks of spending the weekend at Shaw's is getting to watch her morning workouts. Shaw wakes up sleepy and rumpled, but instead of resorting to coffee, she climbs into a ratty t-shirt and sweats and does crunches and lunges and push ups- so many push ups. 

So, so many. 

Her biceps and triceps get all cut looking. Her forearms tighten and her shoulder blades ripple just a little as she presses up from the floor and drops back down gracefully. Root envies the little trickle of sweat on the side of Shaw's neck. Envies it.... and kind of wants to lick it off. Is that normal? She makes a note to check the psychology databases later. 

Shaw had lain so close to her in bed last night, just an arm length's a way, still as a statue. She smelled so good and her soft breathing had been quiet and adorable. Who knew breathing could be adorable? Root had wanted so badly to roll over, to be brave and toss her leg across Shaw's, climb on top of her, and kiss her and kiss her. But Shaw had been so insistent on taking things slow, so insistent of breaking off their kisses as soon as things got too hot and wet and slidey. 

"Slow is good," Shaw had panted, breathing hard, like she did after running, and squirming out from under Root.

Any slower, Root grumbles to herself after the lights go out, and she'll be a virgin well into her twenties. She wants certain things so fiercely that she swears she can feel it in her blood. She wants to touch Sameen and be super close to her, and push the kissing to the very limit. She wants the intensity and the rush that she feels sometimes when she's alone in bed, but she wants it with Sameen.

Sameen and her careful, measured resistance. and her adorable ethics. and... her annoying insistence on moral codes. Why does Sameen have to be such a determinedly good person? Root licks her lips and pouts at the utter lack of sex in her life. Somehow it's even worse with Shaw's warm, firm body only inches away. Ok, so Shaw suddenly snoring very loudly does slightly dampen her fiery passion. For a moment.

The winter sun hasn't even come up when Shaw pries the frosted-shut doors of Root's car open and they climb in. Root has swathed her head parts in a burgundy wool scarf that is twice as wide on end as it is on the other. She made it in home ec (ok, paid someone else to make it). She's bundled into three coats: one that's too short, one with a broken zipper, and one that's much too big. Together they make the perfect winter ensemble. And she has a combined total of 14 pockets. Shaw presents a much more put together picture, in her wool beanie and a puffy ski jacket and scarf, all bearing the logos and colors of different local sports teams. She curls up in the front seat and studiously puts herself back to sleep as Root guides the car onto the long stretch of interstate highway. 

Root tries not to peek over at Sameen's sleep-gentle face too often, but it's hard to resist. She's so pretty and relaxed, and her mouth is just a tiny bit open. Root only gets distracted half a dozen times. In the first hour. It's not like she drives off the road. Entirely... and anyway, she's pretty confident that possum was well dead before she ran over it.

All Root really wants to do is pull the car over in a field or behind some trees and wake Shaw up and make out. Shaw would be annoyed at first but then she would turn that annoyance into fervor and the windows would steam up a little.... But they have a tight time frame, and Shaw has a strict rule that she's only to be woken up if there's a fire or food or some combination of both.

Shaw finally does wake up around ten am, stretches, and reaches for one of the water bottles rolling back and forth under her seat.

"So now that we're on our way, are you going to tell me what we're doing?"

Root does not divert her gaze from the empty lanes ahead. 

"We're going to pick up some things I need, and some toys."

"Toys?"

"Toys, yes. Playthings. You're not the *only* thing I like to play with."

"Psh. That one was scraping the bottom, even for you." 

An hour later they pull into a hardware store. Root leads a puzzled Shaw through a number of aisles, picking up things like powdered grass dyes in yellow, red, and blue- the kind they use to make paint for the lines on the football field, and bits of piping, screws, nuts, washers, a ladder.

"We have hardware stores at home," Shaw observes, when they finally load everything into the trunk and hit the road again.

"Yes, but we also have very strict regulations about pyrotechnics. And who can purchase them. And in what quantities."

Shaw does not do a little bounce in her seat. Definitely not. She would punch anyone who even suggested as much. She does grin at Root though. Smugly. 

"Knew it."

Root smiles back fondly. "We're going to have so much fun." she promises. 

Root does not feel the need to mention that they will be recreating some of the events that led to her first and fifth arrest. Just the fireworks parts. Not the terrified bank teller handcuffed to the radiator or the accidental library fire or the misplaced dog or any of the other elements....

The quantity and quality of fireworks Root buys- handing over artfully crumpled tens and twenties in a convincing portrayal of a teen who has saved up EVER SO LONG for some new year's eve bang and flash-- well, frankly, the level of explosives they purchase turns Shaw on massively. Root heaps box after box into her arms and Shaw, barely able to see over the top of the pile, staggers out to the car with them. 

On the road again, she turns in her seat to gaze lovingly at the large, plain cardboard boxes carefully wedged between trash bags in the back seat. They're going to make such excellent explosions. 

"Please tell me we're pranking someone."

"It's like you don't know me at all," Root remarks flatly. 

"I had to buy extras, of course, because we need to test them. Probably in the walmart parking lot, or maybe the empty swimming pool by the cornfields. Preferably while your mother's away. I think we'll need to be out all night. I wouldn't want you to get in any kind of sticky situation with the authorities."

The way Root says sticky situation, and the look she shoots her, does funny things to Shaw's stomach. She grins. She wants to make out with Root so hard.

The wanting doesn't subside, not after they get burgers for lunch, not after more hours driving home when Root's German metal cassette gets stuck in the player and she has to carefully unwind it, not even after they get back and sit down to do their homework and Root spoils the best physics problem in the set with three strokes of her pencil. 

"I almost had it." Shaw grumbles, tossing her book and papers off her bed in mostly fake frustration, her gaze drifting to Root's wicked and self-satisfied little smirk.

"I know," Root teases, "but I'm bored with physics now."

Root? Bored with physics? "What could possibly be more exciting than phy---"

Shaw doesn't finish that thought. She gets pushed down onto the bed, and climbed on, and then Root's mouth is on hers, and Root's knee is doing something that feels dangerously good, pushing her legs apart, and Root is pressing down, pinning one of her wrists to the mattress. Root's so forceful and demanding and-

"Oh my god," Shaw gasps, when Root finally lets her breathe.

"Don't bring God into this. She has places to be."

Root kisses her neck, and her jaw, and behind her ear. Shaw feels her hands sliding down Root's body to grip her butt. Root kisses down her neck, and her other hand drags across Shaw's abs. Shaw arches up into it. Root's fingers move down and down... Things are getting hot, and fast. 

"Wait wait wait" She turns her head, struggles to get some clarity, "Root."

Root lets up and leans back, still sitting on her. She cocks her head and takes a steadying breath. 

"Sameen, do you want to have sex with me or not?"

"I do"

"... but?"

Shaw frowns. "I do, but, I don't know if we should."

Root wipes her mouth off and studies Shaw's serious expression. This is important to Sameen, she can tell.

"Is it because I like you more than you like me? Because I'm ok with that." 

Shaw looks away, stares at her Dogs of the World poster on the wall behind Root's shoulder. She props herself up on her elbows and tries to find words for the thoughts in her head. Root is older than her, but Root has never... and Root has feelings, and feelings are complicated. They get more complicated by sex. Last summer Joey Enright got all pissy and wouldn't dirtbike with her anymore after they hooked up a few times but she didn't want to be his girlfriend. But, Root is different. Root is already her... well they already have a different way of... But what if-

"You're thinking about this way too much."

"What?"

"You've been staring at that poster for three minutes. It's beyond awkward now. Look, Sameen, I like you and you like me, and I want to feel good with you. Can you just. Relax? and let it happen?"

Shaw blinks. Root looks more amused than annoyed or mushy and in love or turned on or, well, anything. Her eyes crinkle at the corners and she's smiling down at Shaw like she does when she catches her rewarding herself with skittles for setting a new equation balancing record. Like Shaw is... cute... or something. 

"Are you saying I'm uptight and overthinking this and I should just embrace the gray areas of this whole 'it may or may not be a healthy idea for us to have sex' thing?"

Root nods. "Exactly... and you're really hot when you're trying to act in my best interests."

Shaw rolls her eyes. This nerd is too cute for her own good.

"Fine. But I'm still annoyed you ruined that problem for me."

Root dips her head down and kisses Shaw firmly, "maybe I'll let you punish me for it later."

If Shaw has coherent thoughts left at that moment, she promptly forgets them.


	17. ice cream and mayhem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Root and Shaw do something naughty. Guys, don't bring fireworks to school. or use them in a prank. that shit is dangerous.

They make out for a long time in Shaw's bed, Root pinning Shaw to the mattress and moving slowly and rhythmically on top of her as they kiss.

Root's whole body is charged. Every part of her is so sensitive, especially her mouth, on Shaw, and her fingers pressing against Shaw's pulse point, and where she's grinding down onto Shaw, and where Shaw's warm, firm hand is worming its way down the back of her pajamas to rest on her butt. Root has never felt so good, her body pulsing and thrumming and insisting on more, more, more, from head to toe.

Shaw doesn't know if they're going to have sex tonight or what. But it feels good and Root smells really nice. Root's clearly having a good time, if the way she keeps shuddering and digging her nails into Shaw's wrist are any indication. Shaw normally likes to be in charge, but it's kind of hot with Root on top. Root's not really in total control, because Shaw is stronger, but she's demanding in a good way. Shaw decides she likes it.

And the way Root's working her neck over is pretty great too.

Root shivers a little bit, pulls back, and makes a noise like a whimper and laugh combined,

"I think that's enough," she whispers, clearing her throat, "for me. for now."

There's an unspoken - _is that ok?_ \- hanging in the heavy air between them.

"Mmmm, works for me." Shaw sighs, then snaps her hips a little underneath Root, "Now get off. All your burgeoning sexuality on my ribcage is making it hard for me to breathe."

"I KNEW I TOOK YOUR BREATH AWAY,"

Shaw socks her on the arm for that.

"Knew it," Root whispers again, scurrying under the blankets before Shaw can get her again.

Shaw rolls her eyes and mouths "nerd" at Root's messy hair.

The next morning there are bowls of Honeycombs and Lucky Charms because Mama Shaw is not there to frown disapprovingly at the sugary goodness.

The bowls are Shaw's; Root wraps herself around a mug of coffee like it's the most important thing in the room. She sighs happily as she explains her new Vengeance Plan.

"--- so when the explosion triggers the spigots, the water activates the dyes, and the whole team gets a complimentary new paint job."

"Hm. Didn't realize you were so creative."

Root simpers. "My sadism has to be unleashed somewhere."

"What did Martine do this time? To earn herself and the team this new humiliation?"

Root shrugs, she can't lie to Shaw about this. Can she? No, Shaw would find out.

"Last week Martine started trying to blackmail me. She thinks she saw us kissing in the parking lot, silly girl. She has too much free time if she can let her imagination run wild like that. So I planned a little distraction for her and the team. A fun surprise for them to enjoy before their home game next week."

"That game determines if they'll go to state or not." Shaw's forehead wrinkles in a way Root thinks means disapproval.

"Fine, then after the game."

Shaw nods, that's better. Revenge is revenge, but it has to be fair.

"It's pretty crappy of her to blackmail you when she's so clearly Jeremy Lambert's beard."

Root laughs, "what? Lambert's not-"

"Please. I once asked him if he thought the Bills were headed for the Superbowl and he told me he didn't know-- he didn't follow _**baseball**_."

"That doesn't mean anything, plenty of guys don't care about football."

"Not here. Not liking the game is a worse crime than liking the players...." Shaw trails off. She's not sure anymore. Maybe she got the wrong idea about Lambert.

"Well. The Bills will make it, but they won't get the ring."

Shaw gapes.

"What? I did my AP stat final on predictive factors of this season's football."

"There is NO WAY."

"Dallas wins by a fifteen to... mmm, twenty point margin. Mostly accrued in the third and fourth quarters-"

Shaw's ears stop working at that point because Root and MATH and sports? Yes. Yes. God, yes.

"Wait can you tell how my team's going to do this season?"

Root shakes her head, "not without extensive research and analysis."

She's not about to tell Shaw that the only parts of the varsity basketball team she's interested in researching and analyzing are Shaw, Shaw's legs, Shaw's butt, Shaw's arms, and the way Shaw captains the team like it's a military unit. mmm. When she makes them do pushups....

Shaw shakes her head, Root is crazy levels of brilliant.

And yet apparently incapable of balancing on a ladder- which is why Shaw ends up rigging all the sprinklers in the women's locker room before the lacrosse game. Root had broken in over the weekend and arranged a few of the least dangerous fireworks on top of the lockers. She'd said something about times fuses, or something, Shaw had been preoccupied calculating how much dye powder to pack in each of the capsules they would put in the sprinklers.

Twenty five sprinklers. One Shaw. One ladder. She almost doesn't make it to her seat next to Root on the bleachers in time.

Root wordlessly hands her a thermos of cocoa. Shaw nods once, subtly, and Root smiles to herself.

She promises herself this will be the last time she antagonizes Martine. Really. Martine is harmless (mostly) and more interested in her own popularity and bullying people than in anything that could have real world consequences. This will be her final, pettiest, and most artistic recenge. She needs to focus on her jobs, for money for college and the car and Things. The stakes get higher every time she pokes her way through a cyber fence and rifles, borrows, steals, obscures. The problems of high school seem smaller and smaller, each day closer she gets to the end.

There's only one thing, in all of this, that seems to get bigger and more important by the day.

Shaw bounces her foot on the bleacher, vaguely annoyed by the lacross game. Root deciea she's very cute, sitting next to her all bundled up, focusing on the game. The way Shaw licks her bottom lip and scowls at the game are undeniably captiviating. Her pony tail is pulled tight, hanging out from under her beanie (Root wants to bury her nose in Shaw's hair, but that would be so obvious. "Teen cliche" she mumbles to herself). Her scarf is wound on very crookedly, and she has one hand wrapped around the thermos and the other on Root's thigh.

ON HER THIGH.

Right there, north of the knee. All casual and proprietary. Sameen probably doesn't even realize she's doing it.

Root grins and studies Shaw's small fingers, her bitten-short nails, the little scars and scrapes on her knuckles and the back of her hand. That hand was on Root's own butt last night. Not on her back pocket, under her pajama pants. On Her Butt. That's got to be, like, third base. At least.

The thrill of Shaw's hand RIGHT ON HER LEG, almost overshadows the thrill of the caper that is about to unfold.

After the game (Home team victory, Martine's headed for state), the teams rush into the locker rooms to change. Approximately seven minutes after Martine and her crew pass through the swinging doors, a loud, rumbly popping and whistling begins. There are shrieks- from people and from fireworks.

"Sounds like the victors have started the celebrations a little early," Root comments as they sidle over toward the door.

There isn't time for the team to exit. Someone has jammed a doorstop under the doors, and they won't open.

The fireworks stop after about thirty seconds, and then the hiss and splatter of a well tuned sprinkler system kicks in.

Then comes the REAL screams. Root and Shaw smirk at each other.

"How long does that dye last?"

"On human skin? Oh, I'd guess a week."

Neither of them consider how long it will last on things like school property or the team's uniforms. Gleeful visions of multi-colored, soaking, irate lacross players overshadow any and all moral implications of the prank.

"You're vicious." Shaw admires.

Root preens.

"I would want to stick around for the performance art aspect, but I think people are bound to start asking questions and pointing soggy, paint-streaked fingers fairly soon, and I bet there's definitely a police cruiser on the way... Let's make ourselves scarce, go get ice cream. I suspect the dairy palace will be noticeably empty tonight."

Shaw nods, ice cream and mayhem always go together well. Almost as well as mayhem and... other, less frosty things.

"Bur what about all the leftover fireworks?"

"Who says we can't eat ice cream and charr up some cornfields at the same time?"

For asking this question, Shaw decides, Root is going to get all the ice cream she can possibly eat.

"I want sprinkles," Root decides, heading for car, "rainbow ones."


	18. reflections and deflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Root and Shaw talk about Tough Stuff.... or don't talk about it? 
> 
> there are fireworks and ice cream.

The Dairy Palace is, as Root had predicted, fairly empty. It's just two families out with their kids and a few couples on dates, and Beder Carrel, a boy from their school who is doing his senior year over again, behind the counter.

"Hey Shaw," he calls, as she and Root study the chalkboard menu, "Haven't seen you around in a while."

Beder leans his elbows and forearms across the counter, and is not even subtle about slowly looking Shaw up and down and grinning.

"Been busy. School, basketball, chem lab, other stuff..." She stuffs her hands into her coat pockets and surreptitiously glances at Root. Root says nothing, studiously reading the menu instead.

"You know," Beder says, "You were gonna hook me up. Back in October, before I got busted for the thing...."

The thing to which he is referring, Root remembers, is his arrest for possession. "Puff" Carrell, his stoner friends had joked, and painted a pot leaf on his locker.

"You wouldn't still have anything for me, would you?"

"Sorry B. I'm dry." Shaw shrugs. "Maybe try Elliot? In your remedial history class. He's usually got something good in the works."

Beder nods sagely and comps them a pint of birthday cake ice cream- Root's choice.

Root wants very very badly to ask what the exchange was all about, but she doesn't have to. As soon as they head back to her car, Shaw explains;

"I used to have a fake ID. When I was like, sixteen, Sometimes I'd get him and his friends vodka, for a fee. Then my Ma found out," she shifts uncomfortably at the memory, "so. I don't do that anymore."

"Your mom really lays down the law, doesn't she?"

Shaw shrugs. "She doesn't want me going into life with any more disadvantages than I already have. That means keeping me on the good side of the legal system, I guess."

Shaw thinks of the eleven therapists she'd been through, the ethics lessons, the college biology classes, the many long meetings her mother had had with counselors and principles and teachers while Sameen waited in the hall, the sports camps and rewards for positive interaction with others, the rules that might have been strict but ultimately made sense, the yoga, the meditation, the art and music therapy.... all the things her mother used to do and still does to ensure she doesn't just have a good life- but that she has the best life.

"I have a good Ma," Shaw decides, shifting the freezing pint of ice cream to another part of her lap, to keep her thigh from going completely numb.

Root hums in agreement but adds nothing. She doesn't like to think about her own mother. She loves her mother, but... When she was still small, she used to wish that they could have a normal life just for one day. A clean house, a regular schedule, actual breakfast, a working shower and washing machine, nobody locking themselves in their room or a closet and crying, a real dinner- eaten at the table, which would not be covered in magazines and newspaper clippings, and nobody too tired just from being alive to even get out of bed. Root draws a deep breath. Her mom has her new boyfriend to take care of her. And Root, Root has herself, and Shaw now, kind of.

Shaw who is staring at the ice cream in much the same way a dog stares at a treat that has been offered but not handed over for far too long. Her dark eyes are fixed and unblinking. She licks her lips. Root suddenly feels deeply jealous of the ice cream.

Root drives them twenty miles out of town, to one of the many abandoned buildings she knows of. Root's secret map of abandoned places never fails to impress Sameen. She grins as Root shepherds her into an empty grain silo, a duffle bag of fireworks in one hand, the paper bag with their pint of ice cream in the other.

Shaw looks up at the cross beams etching across the ceiling. Some of them have bright tarps fastened across them. The roof is probably less than air tight. The ground floor of the silo is dry, concrete, and fairly clean, despite some plant detritus and cardboard boxes.

"Another secret fort, huh?"

"Yep. Maybe later you can besiege my secret fort." Root does her impression of a wink.

Shaw shakes her head.

"Looks like somebody lives here." She points to what appears to be a mattress, sleeping bag, full trash bag, and several plastic jugs of water on one of the wide ledges, some 20 feet off the ground, accessible by a shaky metal ladder built into the wall.

Root doesn't look, and doesn't say anything, except "Come on, these fireworks aren't going to light themselves."

The set up all the rockets, from smallest to biggest. Root wants to do it in color spectrum, but she is outvoted by Shaw. Shaw claims that holding the ice cream gives her a right to an extra vote. Shaw looks so damn cute arranging the fireworks in her precise, meticulous way, that Root has no other option: she caves, spreads out a blanket on the ground, sits there ogling Shaw's butt as she bends over to pound the little stick supports into the frozen ground.

Sameen's butt is so firm and round, but also soft, and grabbable. Root's fingers twitch.

"Do you have a lighter?"

"Huh?"

Shaw turns for a second, catching Root out rolling her lower lip under her front teeth and gazing downward, in a decidedly buttwards direction. Shaw smirks. She turns back to the firework line and bends down again, slowly, exaggeratedly, pretending to fix a crooked fuse.

"I said, 'do you have a lighter?" She calls back, louder.

"Car" Root murmurs, in a tone that makes Shaw suspect she is glassy eyed and possibly salivating. And not because of the ice cream.

Between the stashes in the glovebox, the cup holder, in the trunk, between the seats, and on the floor Root has a total of twenty-three lighters in her car. That's a lot of lighters. She also has cedar strips and bottles of lighter fluid, a litre of gasoline in the trunk, and a large collection of highly flammable odds and ends that could be used as kindling. Her car is basically a pyromaniac's wet dream, Shaw decides.

Her quest for a lighter results in her opening one of the black bags. It has a lot of clothes crumpled up in it- they're folded, but still squashed. There's also a tarp, the same color as the one in the silo. Shaw frowns.

They sit on the blanket for a long time, sharing the ice cream. Shaw gets up every few minutes to set off another firework, working up to bigger and bigger and more elaborate explosions.

Root sighs, when the last firework has popped and poofed and showered them with fizzing sparks, and the empty ice cream bucket and plastic spoons have been cast away, and they flop back on the blanket to stare up at the actual, fixed, silent stars...

"Well, Sameen, you're the first girl who's ever made me see fireworks."

Shaw pokes her in the ribs for that. "You're so gay," she grumbles fondly.

They lay there for a few quiet moments, listening to the freezing winter wind brush through the tall grasses and trees. Somewhere in the silo, a lip or rim or window catches the breeze and occasionally lends itself to a weak whistling or howling. Creepy but not unpleasant. The tarp inside the silo flutters just enough to remind Shaw...

She clears her throat.

"Is that your stuff, in the silo?" She asks, steadfastly looking at the sky and not over at Root.

She can hear Root make a tiny sigh. Root folds herself up, wraps her arms around her legs and rests her cheek on one knee, facing Shaw.  

"Yes. Sometimes when I need some space, I crash here. It's warm enough, and dry and safe, and most of all private."

"You have a lot of places like this where you crash?"

"Not a lot."

"What do your folks think--"

Root chuckles, "You're adorable."

She decides this conversation needs to become less verbal, stat, so she rolls over and climbs on top of Shaw. Root kisses her so hard and so long and so fiercely that Shaw almost forgets her line of questioning. Almost.

"Mmm, Root. I wa--"

Root sits back, and they're in the same position they were in a few nights ago, Root on top of Shaw, both of them breathless and worked up.

"I wanna know. About you," Shaw presses, unsure what, exactly, she wants to know or why she wants to know it.

Root's eyes crinkle.

"Let's go back to your place," she says, "My butt is freezing, and it's easier to deflect when I'm helping you organize your candy stash."

Shaw decides she's defeated for the moment, but not for good.

"It's not a stash," she corrects, helping Root shake out and fold up the blanket, "It's an Emergency Fund."


	19. I D.A.R.E. You...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Sorry it took me so long to get a new chapter up. I promise this fic will be uploaded in full by the end of the summer. Enjoy! :)

The Shaw house is dark and cold without Mrs. Shaw there, but Sameen and Root are warmed up plenty from their escapades of revenge pranks and ice cream and moonlit fireworks. The cold crunch of gravel under her tires wakes Root up as Shaw pulls into the driveway. Root stretches longer than she needs to, enjoying the way Shaw studies her body in the half light.

"Come on, nerd, it's dropping below freezing out here,"

Root follows Shaw inside, grateful that she's not crashing at the silo tonight, and a little glum that it is probably too wintery to crash there again before spring.

Shaw flips the lights on as she makes her way into the kitchen, Root trailing behind her.

"I burned all my fingers" Root announces with pride, licking her sore index finger.

"Amateur." Shaw scoffs, "there's neosporin in the bathroom."

Root wasn't even the one lighting the fireworks. But then, Shaw vaguely recalls Root's playing-with-lighters hobby. Which honestly is more expensive than the hacky sack craze most people their age indulge in, but also infinitely less stupid. As long as she doesn't light one of those swishy skirts of hers on fire...

"I think we should have a drink to celebrate."

"What are we celebrating? Revenge?"

"Nah. You know what's better than revenge? Getting away with it."

Root definitely remembers that line from one of the Batman movies.

Shaw raids her mama's liquor cabinet. Mama Shaw does not drink, a residual practice of her own religious upbringing, but she likes to have things on hand to entertain. Sameen pours herself a few fingers of lukewarm cognac from a dusty bottle and digs in the freezer for ice.

"Do you want anything?" She calls, unearthing pounds and pounds of frozen green peas but no ice, "there's a bottle of brandy and uh some nasty thing that looks like tequila but isn't, gin, I think. Ma keeps it for my uncle."

Root considers. Alcohol is gross and it reminds her of her mom and of her mom's loud, crass boyfriend. Root's more of a cigarette girl herself, but Shaw might think she's a wuss if she says no. She wants Sameen to think she's cool and edgy and sophisticated. Images of 1950s era evening-dress-wearing blondes with coiffed hair and martini glasses flutter through her mind.

"Sure, I'll have what you're having. Cognac, right?"

Shaw frowns, head still in the freezer-- _so it's a soft g and not a hard one_. That's what you get for not taking French, she scolds herself, for taking that frivolous trig class instead.

"No ice for me," Root says, the soft splash of liquid hitting glass accompanying her voice.

Shaw emerges with a fistful of cubes, drops them in her own glass, and looks up just in time to catch Root screwing up her face after a sip of her drink.

The way her nose crinkles in revulsion really shouldn't be that cute. Shaw nurses her cognac and watches while Root bravely keeps trying to force sips past her own lips. She runs one long fingertip along the dusty bottle neck, then along the dust on the necks of all the bottles, the rims of the glasses. She sighs, lost in her head again.

Root has a way of looking at things, especially nice things, longingly, like she knows their value, and that they're inherently not for her. It's a look of yearning, with a little bit of sad resignation. Shaw's seen Root looking at the family portraits, knick-knacks, paintings, and furniture in her house in that way. Shaw's seen Root looking at her in that way too.

"It's nice," Root murmurs, attempting another sip of her cognac.

"I like the pictures of your family," Root gestures to the mantle. "Your dad was handsome. You look a lot like him, in the forehead, and chin."

"Thanks."

Sameen tips her head, and doesn't say anything more. She doesn't talk about her dad. Ever. Not to her Ma, not to her teammates, not to any of the shrinks or therapists or counselors.

But Shaw knows that Root knows. She's seen Root carefully fold up the flak jacket and put it on her pillow, before spreading out her textbooks on the bed. She's seen Root studying the neatly folded triangle of an American flag on the mantle, examining the medals in the shadowbox.

She's seen Root pour battery acid into Mr. Greer's desk drawers after he looked right at Shaw and made that comment about not letting Arabs into the US military.

And she knows Root probably looked her up. There was a newspaper article, an obituary, and she has a jagged scar on her knee from the accident. Root's never asked about it. She's never needed to.

Root's a twig with no fighting skills, but there are a lot of ways Root looks out for, Shaw figures. Most of them involve not asking those kinds of questions, not pushing, not making her uncomfortable. Maybe all the things she wanted to ask Root tonight--- about why the name change, and why she sleeps in a silo, and has bags of clothes in her car and always seems to be showering and doing laundry at school, and how she's planning to pay for college or what kind of job allows her to buy a whole car in cash -- maybe those questions are things she should leave alone. At least for now. At least until Root tells her it's ok to ask.

Now, while Root tries bravely not to gag on her tepid cognac, Shaw watches her eyes water and mouth turn down in a grimace with each timid sip.

Finally Shaw shakes her head in amusement and saunters over. She pries the glass from Root's hand and sets it on the table.

"Come on, teen cliche. If you didn't want some, you could have just said. Let me get you a pop."

Root flushes with warmth and gratitude. There's no reason for Shaw to be so nice to her. She's so lame and wearing the same shirt for the third day in a row and she doesn't drink but somehow Shaw STILL likes her and doesn't make her feel like a loser.

"But Sameen, if you don't peer pressure me with booze, how will I ever get to practice what I learned in D.A.R.E. and just say no?"

Shaw rolls her eyes.

"We both know you skipped that seminar to steal hubcaps and then 'borrowed' one of the shirts out of lost and found."

"Guess that's why I can never say no... why, I guess you could ask me to do anything, and I probably would."

The way Root rolls the "anything" around like it's heavy with promises, makes Shaw's body hum and get a little bit taut in pleasurable anticipation.

"I do want you to do something for me,"

Shaw pauses. She steps into Root's personal space, waiting until her eyes darken and her breath quickens and she licks her lips.

"Yes, Sameen?"

"Pick what soda you want: Rootbeer or cola?"

So it's with a stifled sigh of exasperation, cold bottle of rootbeer in her one hand, and Shaw's small, warm hand in her other, that Root finds herself being led up to the attic bedroom.


	20. tastes like teen spirit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here there be sexy times... or are there?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is about sex stuff... third base for sure. Not super graphic. If that makes you squeamish, don't read.

Once she gets the space heater in her room to finally kick on, Shaw takes a long sip of her cognac. Objectively, it's not a _great_ flavor, but it makes a nice, earthy warm feeling spread through her and switches over her gears from "too alert" to "just relaxed enough."

She closes her eyes for a beat, and when she opens them again Root's watching her intently. She's staring and running her finger around the rim of her soda, smirking down at her in a way that is somehow both creepy and cute.

"It's cool if you don't like to drink, you know; I don't like to smoke" Shaw says.

Root shrugs, "my mom's boyfriend drinks. I... I don't like the smell."

"Does it bother you if I do?"

"No."

Shaw steps into Root's space and tugs on her sleeves until she gets the hint and bends down. Then Shaw kisses her.

They kiss for a long time, moving sluggishly in the direction of the bed or the couch or wherever they can sit.

Root pushes at her sternum and Shaw flops down onto the couch with an "ooomph." Their drinks very nearly spill before making it safely to the floor. Then Root is on top of her and her knee is between Sameen's thighs and her hand is wrapped around her wrist, the other on her chest.

Root pins her to the back of the couch in a dominant way that Shaw has never been cool with before. But with Root's tongue in her mouth and those usually delicate hands roughly groping her boobs, Shaw doesn't give a damn. She rises and falls with the movements of Root's body in her lap, getting more and more worked up as Root touches her.

"Mmmmm" one or both of them rumbles, breathing heavily.

After what feels like no time at all, but in reality is probably more like thirty minutes, Shaw breaks away to get an uninterrupted lungful of air. Root sits back and grins down at her, cheeks pinker than usual and eyes dark and bright at the same time. She digs her fingers into the backs of Shaw's shoulders and presses her thumbs into her clavicles. It hurts, but in a good way. Shaw's body feels thick and syrupy and sluggish, like she's a ball of putty Root is pressing and smushing and molding. Those sharp little digs become focus points, the perfect balance of roughness to even out all the other soft and slidey things going on. Sameen shivers.

"I'm getting close," she whispers in Root's ear.

 _Close to what_ , Root almost says before realizing, oh, "ohhh"

Sameen kisses her neck, "want to stop?"

Root shakes her head and kisses her again. So they don't stop.  
Root drops her fingers to Shaw's belt immediately, fumbling with the buckle. She pokes the tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrates, fumbling in excitement.

"Hey speedy, relax. It's not a race,"

Root knows this, but a part of her worries that if she slows down, she'll psych herself out. It's not that she's afraid. It's just that she.... gets nervous. This is new and Shaw is important and Root has only ever practiced these things on herself. And while her sexual experiments have been numerous and successful, one person is a very small control group.

Root slows her hands a little bit, not enough that the nervousness will show though. She tugs at Sameen's pants while Sameen lifts her hips up. Finally the pants come down a few inches, over Sameen's hipbones, down to the middle of her thighs. Then Root forgets to breathe.

Shaw starts counting in her head, wondering how long Root will continue without air.

Sameen is wearing green underwear. Dark green underwear and her abs are so firm and tan and her belly button, wow,

"You going to stare, or..."

21 seconds is long enough to skip breathing, Shaw decides.

Root's eyes snap up to her face, "What do I do?"

"Depends on what you want. Do you want to feel me up? Get to third base? Do you want to make me come? Do you want to make yourself come?"

"Yes." Root says, nodding vigorously, "all of it."

"ohhhh kay. Touch me the way you'd touch yourself. I like it firm but not too rough."

Root bites her tongue. What does that even mean? She slides her palm over the front of Sameen's underwear. She presses her fingers over right about where she thinks they should be and rubs small circles.

Nothing really happens.

So she just keeps making awkward circles, hoping it will do the trick and cursing herself for not researching lesbian sex more thoroughly. That Danish porn she stole from the video store definitely left her with the impression that acrylic nails would be required. And possibly a stiletto.

After a few minutes of watching Root get acquainted with the surface of her underpants, Shaw closes her eyes and starts palming her own breast, teasing the nipple. She knows the exact moment Root notices this because her fingers stop moving and she sucks in a breath. At least she doesn't completely stop breathing this time.

Root is absolutely mesmerized by the way Sameen's fingers move under the fabric of her soft flannel shirt.

"Does that feel good?" She's never touched her own chest like that....

"Yeah, you want to try?" Sameen reaches for one of her hands and moves it up, "switch?"

So Sameen takes over the below the belt work and Root sticks a hand all the way up under her shirt, and scoots up so they can kiss too.

Fuck.  
FUCK Fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuck. Root's doing it she's touching Sameen's breast- under the shirt AND under the bra-- touching Sameen's soft skin, with her hand, the hand that she burned on the stove last week, the very same one. Sameen's breast is warm and a little firm too and her skin is so silky and wow, right in the middle-

"Ow!" Sameen arches her back and squeezes her eyes shut when Root unexpectedly pinches a nipple,

"Ahhh" she hisses a second later when the initial tweaky sharp feeling turns to something warmer and more exciting.

"Sorry" Root releases her death grip on the nipple.

Clearly the porn was wrong about that.

"No, it's ok. I think I liked it"

So Root continues her exploration of the northern hemisphere of Shaw, while Sameen cranks her own engine. It's a wriggly, writhy business, one Shaw's second-hand couch cushions are hardly equipped to withstand. And after a while, they find themselves sliding off the couch and landing with a muted thunk on the floor.

Root laughs and scrapes her teeth along Shaw's neck. Root manhandles her breasts aggressively, but in a good way. Shaw kisses Root hard, gripping her hip with her free hand and and tensing up under her.

Root stares down at her flushed face and full lips. Shaw breathes out a shaky sigh and tips her head back against the couch, spent for the moment.

"Wow."

"What?"

"You're even hotter than you were before I saw your O face."

"That's just your latent homosexuality talking."

Root pinches her side, hard. "Who are you calling latent?"

After they defile the couch and the floor beside it a little more, Shaw disappears to wash up and change into pajamas in the bathroom.

Root grins as she pushes herself to her feet. Tonight is epic. Sameen is amazing. Everything right now is too much, too good to be true. She bites her knuckle, to keep from squealing like a giddy child.

Root kicks her socks off and flops onto Shaw's bed, spreading herself across it, taking up all of the space. She fluffs out her hair. She lies on her side, bends one knee and props her head up with her hand. Like a sultry woman in a Renaissance painting. Her wrist immediately gets pins and needles. And her feet get awfully cold because Shaw's attic room, while picturesque in its grunge sensibilities, is really poorly heated.

Root sighs and de-smudges her glasses. Being seductive is so much work.

"Hurry up, Sameen, I'm ready for my deflowering" she calls as Shaw pokes her head into the room.

Shaw chokes on air, and pulls her shirt off. She has no bra on because it's a pajama top-- this is only Root's second time seeing her breasts, even though she's gotten plenty handsy with them.

They are perfection. Root's eyes widen and her lips part. She gives Shaw a heavy, lustful stare. Root decides that if she believed in god, this is what seeing the face of god would be like, no, not the face of god, the boobs of a goddess-

"A goddess?" Shaw interrupts her train of maybe-audibly-verbalized thoughts, "I don't know about that, but, uh, thanks."

To blink, Root decides, would be a crime. She stares hard, eyes crinkling at the corners in concentration. Should she look at one breast and then the other, back and forth, or both at once? She sucks on her lower lip and tries not to pass out.

Until Shaw gets tired of being ogled and runs over to the bed to pounce on her.

Root squeals because instead of doing sexy stuff, Sameen starts smothering her face with her balled up shirt. She straddles Root and pins her down, one hand on her wrists, the other playfully smushing the shirt onto Root's face, but not hard enough to impede breathing.

Shaw decides Root is extra hot when she's half-heartedly struggling, her shirt riding up and her arms and legs flailing everywhere.

"Say uncle." Shaw demands.

Root kicks weakly. Sameen smells like salt and deodorant and laundry detergent.

"mmpphhgrrr"

"What was that?"

She lifts the balled up shirt just enough for Root to chirp, "Why, Sameen! I didn't know we were into gagging!" before returning the shirt to its true calling, muffling the nerdling's obnoxious shouts.

Root goes limp. She's playing dead. If she does it well enough, maybe Sameen will feel the need to CPR her, on the mouth.

Shaw frees her wrists and pulls the shirt back. "Did I kill you?" she pants.

Root only grins and reaches up, slowly, until her hand meets Sameen's throat. She squeezes just the tiniest bit. Sameen's eyes go black. Her blood roars in her ears. Disappointingly, Root lets go.

"Not yet."

And then the rest of Shaw's body seems to wake up, to catch up with her. Her legs and everything leg-adjacent realize that she's sitting right on top of Root. Her palm realizes it is still on Root's chest. Her knees realize they are bracketing Root's narrow hips.

She bends down and kisses Root, taking and taking until Root whimpers a little and unconsciously presses up with her hips.

They start grinding against each other before either of them fully grasps what's happening. Root rolls her hips up, Sameen thrusts down and moves to straddle one leg. Root tries to keep her eyes on the breasts, is distracted with kissing, and has to settle for putting her hands on them instead. Sameen does something to her neck, using teeth and tongue and it feels hot and wet and Very Good.

"Could you get off like this?" Shaw asks, her lips still pressed to Root's neck.

"I... don't know."

This is well beyond the parameters of her personal sexperiments. Root tries to assess herself: she's breathing heavily, her limbs feel taut and buzzy, certain squishy parts are feeling extra squishy. She wants something, needs something more.

That something, it seems, is a little extra rhythmic pressure from Shaw's thigh. Root gasps.

Shaw smirks, "are we gonna find out?"

They find out.


	21. desperately seeking notebook

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mama Shaw comes home. Root looks for her diary. They have a weird conversation. Sameen sleeps through all of it.
> 
> guys i don't even know what this is. just. so much teen awkwardness. i hope you enjoy.

When Mrs. Shaw gets home from her conference, three days before Sameen and Root's Christmas Break starts, it's already late in the evening. Midnight, maybe one am. She finds the house cold and dark and silent, but a trail of lamps left on leads her upstairs.

Mrs. Shaw leaves her bags in her bedroom before venturing up to the attic to check in on Sameen. She knocks, hears no answer, and then climbs four of the six steps, peering into the dim room.

She does not miss the box of Apple Jacks by Sameen's desk, the row of empty soda bottles on the coffee table, or the fruit by foots scattered around everywhere, even mixed in with the rolled up dirty socks on the floor. The positively criminal amounts of sugar she can ignore, but the telling pile of clothes at the foot of the bed, and the sleeping girls to whom the clothes belong give her pause.

Of course Root is there, as she seems to be more often than not lately. Tonight, she clings to a pillow on the far side of Sameen's mattress. The girls are a tangle of hair and limbs and a lot of quilts.

It's no surprise that they're sleeping on top of each other; the room is freezing. She really needs to get more than a space heater for Sameen. A leg, lanky and pale, bare to the thigh, hangs loosely over one edge of the bed, its narrow foot dangling into space. Mrs. Shaw sees Sameen's arm, tan and muscular, protruding from somewhere within a heap of quilts. Her hand lies on the uppermost part of Root's leg- her small fingers spread loosely, like the petals of an open flower.

It's maybe more intimate a tableau than Mrs. Shaw feels ready for. She looks away and makes a note to bring this development up with Sameen's current therapist, just to be on the safe side. Sex is one thing. Intimacy is another.

She yawns as a band of moonlight falls through the window by the bed, cold and clear, illuminating a white sliver of what looks like Root's elbow. Mrs. Shaw recalls a story she used to read Sameen (when her daughter was too small to effectively run away from things like naps and baths and story times). Six baby rabbits fall asleep in a pile of grass and a wicked farmer finds them, spots the tips of their little ears peaking up through the fresh grass cuttings. Now, seeing bits and pieces of Sameen and Root peaking out from various lapses in the blankets, seeing them arranged like lovers but sleeping like babies, she feels they must be in a Schrödinger's box of both adulthood and childhood, not completely one or the other, but somehow both at once. Mrs. Shaw remembers the rabbits of the storybook. _The little rabbits smiled sweetly in their sleep under the shower of grass. They were dreaming that their mother was tucking them up in bed. They had no idea that danger was close by._

Danger, she scolds herself, now that's an exaggeration. Risk might be a better word. Complication. A girl with Sameen's unconventional way of relating to the world... a girl with Root's somewhat unusual amounts of freedom and un-parented-ness. There's a lot of ways either of them, or both of them, could end up damaged. Mrs. Shaw loves her daughter, but there is so much uncertainty, so much she doesn't understand. There are so many things she knows she will never be able to help Sameen with, and adult relationships with girls, women... well, it's a bit daunting. Especially for one in the morning.

She stifles another yawn, surprised at her own exhaustion, then freezes because someone in the bed has just hiccuped very loudly and what if they wake up? What kind of awkward conversation would that instigate?

Of course, the girls in bed together is no shock. Magnets would have been harder to keep apart, honestly. Mrs. Shaw guessed where it was all headed, from the minute Root first appeared, nervous and awkwardly darting around the kitchen, gazing starry-eyed at her daughter. She knew something was up from the moment Sameen let Root take a sip of coffee out of her mug, and leaned in over her shoulder on the pretext of sampling a physics problem. Mama Shaw is not a scientist, but she knows chemistry when she sees it.

Mrs. Shaw halfway rolls her eyes because young love is frustratingly inevitable, even for the special cases, like Sameen and Root. Sameen is bright and remarkably perceptive for her age, but she still has a lot of things she needs to figure out: Root, and her feelings about Root, are two such things.

Root's possessions, some threadbare sweaters, a stack of books, her shoes, hair scrunchies, and her faded backpack, have engulfed Sameen's couch and arm chair. Mrs. Shaw chooses to believe that the criminal amounts of sugar products spiraling around Sameen's room are also solely Root's possessions.

She shakes her head and retreats to her own room, breathing a sigh of relief. The rest of the house is immaculate, which is impressive seeing as it has been inhabited by two teenagers for eight days. The laundry basket is empty, the first aid kit looks untouched, the liquor cabinet is locked, and her collection of Elvis plates is intact. So what if they ate all the apples in the house- they did remember to bring in the newspapers. Impressive. Sameen has earned herself a pass on the junk food hoard.

The next morning finds Mrs. Shaw terribly jet lagged, and hanging onto her coffee cup, blearily staring down a bowl of bran cereal and yesterday's paper. The coffee is perfection. The bran cereal is comfortably bland. The newspaper informs her that no one seems to know how all those fireworks went off in the women's lockers at the high school last week, but the police are investigating a promising lead. Honestly, how do so many weird and inexplicable things seem to happen so frequently in a town this small?

Gangs. It must be gangs.

Good thing Sameen is a sensible girl and too solitary for the kind of group mentality that engenders gang membership. Mrs. Shaw pats herself on the back for having raised One of the Good Ones.

She becomes so engrossed in the fireworks vandalism story that she almost misses Root creeping down the stairs and around the house. Plaid-flannel-shrouded and additionally wrapped in a somewhat uneven blue wool sweater, Root slithers around on mismatched knee socks. She moves silently, or it would be silent, except she's mumbling to herself.

To be fair, Root thought she had the luxury of the house to herself when she came down in search of her field diary. An early morning with Sameen still sleeping off a six pack of poptarts and some heavy petting is exactly what she needs right now because honestly she has a lot of figuring out to do. It's time for a good, long, consultation with the part of her brain that lives in her notebook.

That's not multiple personalities. She knows the notebook is not a sentient being (yet).

Root needs to decide if the immensely rewarding smushing together of body parts that she and Sameen have been engaged in for the last six nights- since the prank/fireworks evening, counts as Sex, or just sexual-ish. Is it practice, or the real deal? Drivers ed, or actually driving your first hot-wired car? SAT or PSAT? Petty theft or corporate fraud?

And how is she supposed to tell the difference? There were orgasms. Kind of. For some more than others.

"I mean, I did have a good time," she reasons, but Sameen had three good times (one of which happened while Root's fingers followed along on top of Sameen's fingers, which were doing all the work, mmmm, yes).

Root stops "mmmm"ing to scowl at the couch when she does not find her backpack on it. This is important. She needs answers, the kinds of answers one can only attain through vigorous self-reflection. Is she still technically a virgin if her pants never came off? What if Sameen's pants never came off, but Root got a hand inside them and last night her palm made contact with Sameen's butt? What if Sameen definitely finished, and she almost did, but couldn't quite get there, is that sex? Is it only sex when some parts go inside of other parts? Cosmo did not prepare her for lesbianism. Neither did her mom's erotica novels. Neither did the stolen porn videos.

Sex Ed definitely did not prepare her for this.

Sex Ed prepared her for an adulthood filled with defiling innocent bananas and referring to her body parts and bodily functions as though they all came from a garden supply store (moon cycle, Eve's garden, blossoming, unfurling, fertilizing, planting seeds- as if she didn't already have enough reasons to hate nature).

Root shuffles in a distracted and crooked circle, from the stairs through the living room and to the dining room, then toward the kitchen, puzzling these matters out for herself- only partially out loud-- and still hunting for her bag with the notebook in it.

She jerks to an abrupt halt when she turns the corner of the kitchen and sees Mrs. Shaw half-asleep at the table.

"Oh! Hello. Good morning, Mrs. Shaw"

Mrs. Shaw smiles benevolently. Root's attempts at politeness always amuse. Root is obviously trying so hard to make a good impression. She even tried to learn how to say "thank you for your hospitality" in Farsi (what she actually said was closer to " I am gratitude for the open houses").

Mrs. Shaw tries not to yawn anymore, for fear of dislocating her own jaw.

"Morning, Root. Sleep well?"

Root nods, making eye contact with Mrs. Shaw's bowl of cereal only and definitely not with Mrs. Shaw. After all, how DO you look someone in the eye after you've stuck your tongue into their daughter's mouth? AND touched the glory that is her butt. It just isn't possible.

Root helps herself to coffee, pulling her favorite Shaw-household mug out of the dish drainer. Before the silence between them can stretch too far, Mrs. Shaw begins conversing in that way that parents do that is somehow both benign and scary.

"Did you and Sameen have a good week?" She asks. Root swallows and nods. Good, as in it was a good experience, not good as in morally infallible...

"Yes. We did our AP chem midterm projects. Took a trip to Lubbock to test out my gas mileage."

"And how's the new car holding up?"

"It's hardly new, but it gets me where I need to go. Hopefully it still has a few good years left."

Mrs. Shaw "hmms,"  changes tracks. 

"You're a senior this year, right?"

Root nods. 

"So what's next for you, after this?"

Root isn't really sure what "this" means, but she guesses maybe graduation, that big horizon before college and The Future.

"I'm going to Massachusetts in the fall, to study computer sciences."

"Massachusetts? That'll be a big change. What is that, a 3 hour time difference?"

"Something like that," Root fidgets with her sugar spoon. She really needs to write down this swell of recent events and thoughts and feelings in her notebook. All this backed up internal teenage drama is distracting, to say the least.

"Sameen had a tournament in New York two years ago, it's not a bad flight from Dallas."

"Oh I'm not flying this time. That's why I bought the car, I mean, why my mom bought it. She bought it for me, as a pre-graduation present."

"That's a great gift!"

"I'm a lucky girl."

Root flashes her a tiny smile, and finishes preparing a coffee for Sameen.

"What do your parents do again?"

"It's just me and mom. She's in sales."

Mama Shaw notices, at this point, that Root is quietly trying to escape, sliding on her sock-clad feet, one inch at a time toward the stairs. She takes pity on the poor girl and waves toward her briefcase on the counter;

"I ran into my colleague in the astronomy department at the conference. He had some copies of the corrected Hubble images and I thought you might be interested. It's the orange file..."

"Oh! Thanks, Mrs. Shaw!"

Root beams and rifles through the briefcase, uncovering a thick stack of glossy photos wrapped in an orange file folder and many rubber bands.

She hugs the file to her chest as she carries two full cups of coffee upstairs.

"Tell Sameen she has until noon to hide her junk food and then I'm coming up to 'collect laundry'" Mrs. Shaw calls after her.

Root trips into Sameen's room, scalding both of her wrists with sloshing coffee when she stumbles over her own backpack, carelessly left on the top step. 

"I LOVE YOUR MOM," she whisper shouts.

Sameen's only reply is an adorable snuffle, which Root immediately wishes she could tape record and play back to herself over and over and over.

Since she cannot, she settles for sitting cross-legged on the bottom corner of the bed, flipping through the photos and scribbling in her re-acquired notebook... but mostly she just props her chin on her hand and watches Sameen sleep and breathe and sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the referenced book is peter rabbit. get on my level, bunties.


	22. no man parts strictly necessary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Root and Shaw go on a Christmas date, NOT! They eat, they talk about sex, this chapter is pg-13 to a mild r so read at will.

The last day of school before Christmas break is a blessed half day. Root, though she enjoys school, is grateful for this because she's _exhausted_ from all of the energy she has sidelined from computer work and used instead to contemplate Sameen Related Things. She gets in to school early and furiously scrapes empty water bottles, fast food containers, crumpled napkins, and old apple cores from the back of her car into a garbage bag. She sprays almost a whole canister of pinesol on the seats. The car needs to be on its best behavior today. After school, she's driving Sameen into the strip, that is, the little string of stores, restaurants, and bars that make up the main part of town. Christmas shopping is not cliche when it's helping Sameen find a gift for her mom.

Here's the thing. Sameen Shaw is not that into Christmas. It's loud and garish and in-yer-face, and she isn't a fan of peppermint flavoring or being accosted by wandering singing Christian types. Her mama, however, loves the holidays.

When Shaw was real little, when her father was still-- well, when she was small, they would learn about every secular and religious holiday that fell in or around December. There would be all kinds of foods and candles and good smells and little presents. It was just them in their house, a warm nucleus where nobody minded if she wanted to use crimson pomegranate juice to paint a bloody wolf fight on shelf paper while her parents and their friends chatted and ate on Yalda (when she was 6), or spend every night of Hannukah practicing her karate forms (when she was 8), or, on Christmas day, hide away for hours in the garage with an erector set and a cup of soup (when she was 10).

Now there are so many people everywhere and she feels pressured to care, to feel, to jump through the hoops. The air around her crackles with the static energy of Christmas conversations: _Aren't you excited?! Tell me all the presents you're giving and all the ones you want to get and all the ones you know you won't get but put on your list anyway. Sit on Santa (_ ew _). Make a wish. Remember the true meaning of Christmas_ (if Christmas has as many True Meanings as tv and movies and Hallmark cards suggest, then it has Infinite Meanings and therefore No True Meaning). _Everything needs to be red and green and sparkly or the world will end..._

  
Sameen thinks that if any more of this noise accosts her she will, like air too permeated with electricity, snap and lightening bolt down on the next cheerful holiday well-wisher who crosses her path.

Except she won't, not really, because she has little places of refuge: running laps for basketball practice, studying, physics problems, lifting weights, her Ma... and now Root, who also seems indifferent to and even annoyed by it all. And thank goodness for that. Although, she suspects Root is bouncing on her heels inside those lesbian combat boots. They might be doing something an awful lot like a holiday shopping date after school.

Meanwhile, though, some jerk keeps taping mistletoe to Shaw's locker door. She pulls it off in between classes, but it reappears, taped a little higher each time. And then, finally, it's back again after Latin, taped too high for her to reach, and she has to leave it there. She's pretty sure she knows who the culprit is, and has plans to exact revenge in the form of swapping out all the red apples in her house for the yellow ones Root detests.

When she yanks her locker open, something light and shrink-wrapped clacks to the ground. Some other vandal, but also probably the same person, has stuffed six thick strips of spicy buffalo jerky into her locker. Joy to the world.

In Chem, Root pretends not to notice the inquisitive sniffs of her table mate (ok she really overdid it with the pinesol but does she care? Fuck no). She doodles very tiny obscene images in the margins of her notebook. Some of them look remarkably like Sameen and her, engaged in athletic pursuits of the make-out variety. Most look like circuitry, practice for the applied computer sciences course she wants to take over the summer. Others, still, look remarkably like Martine, scowling, bedraggled, and doused in colored ink. Is it wrong to get a wicked little tingle when she thinks about Martine being cold and wet and angry? Root shrugs to herself. Morality is the least of her concerns these days.

Martine has been absent from school for several days, ever since Root's ink in the sprinklers project. Jeremy Lambert has spent the week grumping around like a freshly-neutered cat. But honestly, she's been a bitch to Root for years and it's hard to even imagine what it would feel like to be guilty about causing her grief. She deserves it.

Jeremy catches sight of her mid-doodle and tries to peek at her notebook. Root spreads her arms over it and hisses at him because his surprised and then horrified face is so perfect it would make a suitable gift to bring the baby Jesus. If the baby Jesus had as vengeful a sense of humor as his father.

Jeremy balks and scampers back to his bench. Root smirks. She wonders if he has already forgotten the time she locked him in the greenhouse...

High on the spirit of vengeances accomplished, Root the self-appointed Chaos Demon makes her way through the busy halls of the high school. Everyone is buzzing with almost-Christmas-break glee, and the road salt tracked in on people's boots has made the floors look like some kind of indoor ashy winter wonderland.

She spots Sameen waiting by her locker. Sameen is just the right amount of frustrated from the mistletoe and soothed by the beef jerky. Root can tell by the tension in her compact, muscular shoulders and the way she is only a tiny bit leaned against the lockers, casual but not chill. That body language definitely says "pile me into your car, drive me far away from these rednecks, and make out with my face 'til our mouths hurt."

Root catches someone walking next to her turning their head in consternation and realizes she probably narrated a good chunk of that out loud. Whatever. Tis the season.

"Let's bounce," Shaw says, "before I can attract anymore random acts of foliage."

"Next time I'll put it on my belt buckle." Root chirps.

"That's so tacky," Shaw hands her a candy cane, "gag yourself with this til I finish my jerky,"

"You just caned me and now you want to gag me. Kinky."

Sameen's eyes widen because what the everliving hell.... 

"ohmygodddddd" She breathes, shakes her head, and then marches off to the car. Root, immensely pleased with herself and now carrying the candy cane between her teeth like a long-stemmed rose, trots along behind her.

They don't end up driving far far away, as Root had dreamed of. The strip is only about four miles from school, but Root parks in the farthest, emptiest corner of the parking lot behind Burger Barn. Whether or not she needs to show Sameen something of Great Importance in the back seat is nobody's business but their own.

Whether it's from the heated conversation her tongue has with Root's tongue in the very foresty-smelling back seat, or from the frigid walk from the car to Burger Barn, or from finding herself with a certain itch she can't quite scratch, well... At any rate, Shaw works up a hell of an appetite. By noon they are hunkered down in a booth in the cozy, bright, warm, interior of Burger Barn. Shaw has two burgers and a plate of fries, which she hunches over, not unlike a dragon guarding a hoard of treasure.

Root has onion rings and the best view in the place: Shaw can fit three bites of burger in her mouth at a time and it's really, really hot.

"You have ketchup on your chin," It looks like the blood of a slain fast food enemy. She should leave it there.

Shaw scrubs at her face with a napkin.

"Don't judge me. My metabolism is stronger than Arnold Schwarzenegger."

Root laughs, "Fuel up Sameen; you'll need the calories for all the not-punching of vapid fellow shoppers we'll have to do today."

"Ha. Are you going to finish that?" Shaw nudges Root's hand and tips her head toward the half full paper box of onion rings. Root smiles benevolently and pushes the box to Shaw.

"I only wanted three."

Shaw chuckles and looks up at Root from under those perfect, dark eyelashes.

"Three onion rings for lunch. No wonder you weigh five pounds soaking wet."

About a quarter past the onion rings, Root fidgets in her seat and clears her throat. She rests her palms on the shiny acrylic tabletop and decides to ask Sameen the question that she and her diary have been unable to answer:

"Now that we've, um, consummated our relationship on a more physical plane, with kissing and other forms of .... contact, do you, um, do you...."

Shaw sets her burger down and listens to Root struggle with her words.

Root leans in to whisper,

"Do you think what we've been doing is sex? Because I can't figure it out and I've run seven algorithms and I have four pages of detailed self-reflection, single spaced, but I can't seem to come to a conclusion. Encyclopedia Brittanica says no, but the OED is more nebulous in its definitions of intercourse, and Encarta is _willfully_ obtuse."

Shaw takes a long drink of her cola. She thinks for a long minute, absently running her index finger along the shell of her ear while Root runs the tip of her tongue along her bottom lip and goes all dark eyed and STAREY at this unconscious movement.

"I don't know. Some people say sex is, you know---" she dunks a fry into her little barbecue sauce tub rhythmically and meaningfully,

"But then other people say it only counts if everyone involved gets a happy ending. And some people say it's only the real deal if it's a dude and a girl, but I disagree. Health class says it is if the dude gets off. Personally, I think if you have a good time and you finish and someone else is involved, then, I guess it would count. No man parts strictly necessary. I mean lesbians have sex without them, so, yeah."

"Oh."

"What?"

"I think I had sex with Helen Hunt when _Mad About You_ premiered. Well, a tv guide photograph of her. Don't be jealous, she didn't seem that into it."

Shaw rolls her eyes, "you're ridiculous," she says in a way that makes Root buzz with warmth.

"So then, by some metrics, we've...."

Shaw nods, "I would say so."

"Well. In that case, Sameen," Root says, very seriously, "I really enjoyed dunking my french fry in your barbecue sauce."

Their mutual cringe feels a little like part of an inside joke at this point.

"You don't even wanna go there," Shaw grins, "my barbecue sauce is way too hot for your white ass."

Root beams.

"You and your fixation on my---" Yeah, she walked into that one. 


	23. it's just puppy love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter, more to come, enjoy :-)

  
They wander around town for several hours, looking for something to get Mrs. Shaw because her birthday falls on December 31st. Shaw is less than motivated to actually shop for things because she's a little displeased with her ma right now.

Particularly her ma’s Wellness Tactics. Now, Sameen Shaw is all about fitness and health and being better with her body than anyone else is with theirs, but she’s also a level headed type of person who knows that a box of fruit loops once in a while, consumed all in one sitting, is good for the spirit. What’s NOT good for the spirit is the slimy, sticky, slippery greyish blobs that Mrs. Shaw believes to be food.

"She's being unreasonable."

"It doesn't sound that bad."

"Root, this is tantamount to child endangerment."

Root cocks her head at her. Really?

"She made me eat tofu. Last night and the night before." Shaw defends, indignantly, "tofu!"

Root wants to interject, to tease and comfort her, but Sameen continues:

"It's your fault for skipping dinner to work on your computer stuff. If you'd been there, we would have had pizza because she wouldn't dare try tofuing a guest. It's just not fair. After I kept the house so clean while she was at her conference, she goes and doses me with that gross boogery glop."

MAYBE THE CALCIUM IN IT WILL HELP YOU GROW. Root's inner voice dares her to say. She ignores it.

She pats her friend gently on her deliciously firm bicep. "I'm sorry for your culinary trauma, Sameen.”

Shaw has a point though, her part time job has been getting a little more demanding. It’s a lot like being a night janitor, except instead of cleaning gum off desks, she’s erasing digital traces of corporate fraud for a fee. It’ll be nice when she doesn’t have to balance high school with her more entertaining/ illicit/ godlike pursuits.

Shaw sighs and swings her arms loosely;

"I guess it could be worse. She could be going through another turnip phase."

Root wrinkles her nose, "she went through an entire phase of turnips?”

Of course Root’s no one to judge. She once went through a phase of setting people’s recycling bins on fire.

Shaw nods grimly. “The summer before eighth grade wasn’t pretty.”

They slow to a stop outside the pet store, where seven roly-poly puppies occupy the main window display. Some of them snooze in the wood shavings of their pen, but others yip and press their wet little noses against the glass when Shaw and Root come over to look.

Shaw lets out the tiniest- almost silent- sigh that Root has ever heard. She rests her fingertips against the glass and stares at the dogs, her eyes tracking their movements, every lick and snuffle. Her whole face softens in a way Root has never seen before. She has never seemed more emotive to Root than she is in this moment, yearning after dogs.

They stand and stare for so long that Root gets a little bored and has to start calculating pi in her head to pass the time. She gets to about digit 14 before she's mumbling. Shaw breaks out of her trance and tugs them away from the window.

"You really like dogs, huh?" Root asks (as if the Kennel Club poster on Shaw’ wall, and her every interaction with a dog, ever, hadn't already told her as much).

"They're pretty much my favorite animal."

"Think you'll ever get one?"

Sameen shakes her head and squares her shoulders.

"Ma says now isn't a good time. But she used to volunteer at the animal shelter with me sometimes."

Sameen doesn't add that they actually came very close to getting a dog once, when she was fifteen. They'd had a whole bunch of brochures from shelters, and she was already thinking about names. But then one night she was biking home from the batting cages and some boys were tormenting an injured possum and she’d had her baseball bat with her when the white hot rage came on and…, well, strikes one through three went down all at once. It was bad.

Ma had made her have soooo maaaany boring conversations about personal choices, and trust, and responsibility and at the end of it, getting a dog had been taken off the table. _I don't want you losing your self control around an animal. What if it got involved in one of your scraps and bit you or someone else and we were forced to put it down? That would be wrong, Sameen. I'm sorry. Now is not the right time. You can get a dog when you're an adult._

Shaw does not like the fact that there are some things her mother does not-- cannot-- trust her with. And a dog is one of those things, at least right now. It makes her go cold inside; it's not like she would be a bad dog owner. She feels better suited to socializing with animals than with (most) people. And she would never ever put a good, pure, innocent dog in danger.

But after the baseball bat incident, there was all that therapy and there were all those questions in that psych assessment- questions that she didn't know the answers to, and there were the hushed tones of Ma talking to the psychiatrist and there was a firm but final no. And it stung. A lot.

Sameen clenches her hands for a second and releases. It's not an entirely useless calming technique. She shrugs.

"I'm going to college in a year anyway. It wouldn't be fair to get a dog and then abandon him, right when he bonds with me."

Root side-eyes her for a moment, wondering if Sameen realizes that her hypothetical dog abandonment cuts rather close to their own situation. What with the bonding. And then the leaving for college.

“As soon as I have my own place, like when I get to med school, I’m getting a dog.” No she doesn’t have it all worked out in her head, about the kind of bed she’ll get for him (navy and forest green plaid flannel, down-filled, extra large from the L.L. Bean catalogue) and the training she’ll give him (akin to that of the very best police dogs) and the bones and treats and going for morning runs…

"I could see you owning something big and dangerous, a fighting dog, like a pitbull."

Shaw perks up. "I love pitbulls. I could take him places and nobody would bug me and ask to pet him, because they're intimidating looking."

Root smiles fondly and tucks the loose end of Sameen's scarf into her jacket collar.

"Yes, the dog would be the intimidating one in that scenario."

"Well you would probably get something ridiculous and fluffy."

"There's nothing wrong with ridiculous, if ridiculous is also smart."

Shaw rolls her eyes.

"Did you ever have a dog as a kid?"

"Nooo, not exactly.My mom's cousin lived with us for a while and he had a dog, a chihuahua, I think. He used to bring it over with him. It barked all the time and tried to bite everyone, even him. Once it got into my room and peed on all of my shoes," Root chuckles ruefully, "I got in so much trouble for leaving my door open. I hated that dog..."

Shaw presses her lips together in a thin line, feeling the urge to kick something (but she doesn't kick anything, not even a trash can, because she has self control and takes personal responsibility for her actions and yeah, all those things you have to do if you maybe want your Ma to revisit the dog discussion). Shaw bites her tongue. It's not fair, Root getting in trouble for something a dog did. But then, almost everything she hears about Root's childhood seems unfair.

Root giggles, suddenly remembering, "So I borrowed his wallet, put some mud and bacon grease on it, and gave it to the dog. He woke up and found it outside, eating his genuine leather wallet. He turned the most unbecoming shade of purple. I think he disinherited his canine demon child after that.... and I made myself forty dollars richer."

That's another common theme: Root taking wildly creative revenge on the people who have wronged her. Or annoyed her. The line that delineates "deserving of revenge" and "simply a good candidate for some my newest cruelest innovations" is very often blurry with her.

“You don’t mention your mom much.”

Root shrugs. Thinking about her mom makes her need to set things on fire.

“I hatched from an egg delivered from deepest darkest space,” she pronounces, “my earth parents are just a cover.”

“You need to stay out of my comic books.”

Shaw shakes her head and leads them toward the coffee shop that sells the really good hot chocolate.


	24. petty vengeance

There's a bedraggled slip of mistletoe hanging over the door, so Shaw punches Root gently on the arm. 

She was the one obsessed with mistletoe this morning. Needs to be conditioned out of it.

Root pouts and dramatically rubs at her arm while Sameen saunters over to the counter and orders and counts out dollar bills. Root tries not to die when Sameen has to tiptoe to see the full list of available baked goods on the wall behind the counter. Her jeans are really cute, with the rolled up cuffs because they're just about an inch too long and Mrs. Shaw hasn't hemmed them yet. A switchblade tucked into the back of her boot would be a fitting accessory for Sameen. Maybe a good Christmas present.

Someone interrupts her musings by rudely bumping into her from behind because of course she's standing still as stone right in the entrance, like some kind of teen girl gargoyle. 

"Watch it!" the bumper snaps, and when Root turns she sees that, of course, it's the immaculately coifed Jeremy Lambert, along with Martine and their little band of socially elite lacrosse players. 

"Martine," Root smiles widely without blinking, staying right where she is, very much in the way, "You're looking very colorful." 

Her hair is, anyway; it's faded pink, a color that clashes TERRIBLY with her forest green sweater with the Our Lady of Perpetual Judgment insignia over the right pocket. So THAT's why she hasn't been in school in almost two weeks. Her skin has, sadly, returned to its regular hue...

Martine scowls, "whatever."

Jeremy glares. Their cohort moves around them looking for seating.

"I'd step off, Root," Jeremy warns, but Martine slides him aside like the sentient chess piece that he is. 

Martine has had enough. She's been accused of vandalism, had her face and bangs blasted with department store anti-theft ink, and now this, this indignity, being dyed off-pink, right before pre- Winter Formal photos.

"Samantha Groves! I know you had something to do with this! And I will find out what and how and I will see you go down for it."

Root gives a half shrug. 

"I'm not really into that. But I hear some of the OLPJ girls are. That why you transferred?" 

"No!" Martine squawks, "My parents decided that public school was no longer a safe or wholesome environment for me, thanks to all the vandalism and dishonesty, but really,” she gives Root a pointed stare, “what else can we expect from having the crazies mixed in with the general student body? .... and so I’m doing a trial period at Our Lady. And for your information I really like it…."

Root is bored now. She cuts off the speech.

"Well, Martine, you know what they say-"

She takes an assertive step in close, waaaayyy into Martine's personal space, drags her finger down Martine's arm, and before Martine can gather the wits to shove her away she leans in and whispers, 

"Don't knock the crazy 'til you try it," and gives Martine a very wet kiss on the cheek.

"Holy shit!" Jeremy hoots.

Martine basically explodes, her cheeks turning deep red as she scrubs her sleeve over the one Root had the nerve to violate.

She sputters like a bucket of sparklers going off all at once and Root giggles and darts away, getting about five feet before she spots Shaw, two cups in her hands and a paper bag between her teeth, watching the whole scene with mild amusement. She gives Root a "what the hell" look.

"I think we'd better take these outside," Root decides, hustling Sameen out the side exit.

“Sooo,” Shaw drawls, then awkwardly clears her throat, in between bites of muffin, once they've settled in at a snow-free picnic table on the green.

"Do you routinely use your sexuality as a weapon?" 

"Only when I don't have any piano wire on hand."

"You really need to stop reading those Godfather novels. They're giving you violent ideations." 

"Exactly how much of your vocabulary comes from therapy books?"

"Like half. The rest is from textbooks."

"Don't forget comics. And TV."

Shaw blows on her hot chocolate. "So, Martine. What was that about?"

"I was saying a heartfelt 'goodbye, Fredo.' She's transferring to prep school."

"Why did you kiss her?"

"I couldn't think of anything she'd hate more."

"hm."

"Are you jeaaaalous?" Root teases.

"No."

Concerned maybe. She doesn't want Root getting herself hurt. Root thinks she can defend herself or whatever, but it was Martine and six other people and just… well, Root is too much of a physical lightweight to be getting in over her head like that.

"Maybe don't kiss people as a way to rile them. Martine looked like she was about to deck you.”

“I keep forgetting, you like to be the only who decks me,” Root brushes crumbs off of Shaw’s sleeve with a maddening smirk.

“Hmph. So you got her shipped off to Catholic school, huh? That's gotta suck, for her."

"Her field hockey season is over, she isn't on any teams 'til spring, and OLPJ outperforms us at every team activity that you don't do, so, I'm sure she'll be fine."

"I thought she played lacrosse."

Root tips her head and looks down her nose/ over the tops of her glasses at her.

"They're literally the same thing."

Shaw knows better than to argue.


	25. revelations of a deeply personal nature

On their way back to Root's car, Root insists that they go into the pet store. Sameen has to hold all the puppies. The dumpling-shaped pug reminds Root of Mr. Greer, and the chocolate lab is adorably snuffly and squirmy, but the shy little husky puppy matches Sameen's aesthetic the best. Shaw scoffs at that.

"Dogs aren't like lava lamps: you don't get them to match your style."

"But they do have to match your lifestyle, and I don't know, Sameen, it isn't hard to picture you in the Arctic, running a sled pulled by lean, muscular huskies; you'd be wearing leather gloves and fur-hooded coat...and cracking a whip."

A vivid image springs into Root's consciousness. Sameen, dressed not in tundra dogsledding garb but in something much more suggestive of warm.... Very Warm climates. But also with the dogsled whip, and a one of the dog collars, and calling out orders. Root forgets to breathe. Her mind suddenly leaps up and excuses itself to wander to other places, possibly to have a revelation of the deeply personal variety. She busies herself fiddling with the dog sweaters and NOT MAKING EYE CONTACT with anyone especially Sameen.

Shaw makes sure to pet all the dogs equally, not that they notice or care, but she wouldn't want to accidentally show favoritism. Could be unhealthy for their future development. The Saint Bernard licks her hands over and over. 

"It's just burger," she tells him, "you're too young to know about burgers, but I envy the fun discovery that's gonna be for you."

Root dotes, from a polite distance- play it cool, Root, play it cool. She peers around a rack of cutely shaped dog collar labels and watches Sameen take each puppy with great care, pet it gently for a while, and then hand it back to the employee who is in charge of overseeing the human-animal encounters.

"I enjoyed playing with the yellow lab, even if they are one of the least intelligent breeds of dog," Shaw declares when they eventually have to leave.

"I like the wheezy ones with the wrinkles." 

Root shivers as they finally step into the winter evening and their breath immediately begins to trail behind them in silvery wisps.

It's dark and cold, and the parking lot is a good half a mile away, so as the streetlights click on, Shaw slides her hand into Root's. To conserve warmth. Root has a skirt on and even though it's a long swishy one, there's no way it's insulated enough to keep her warm. They're both wearing gloves, but it definitely feels like some heat is transferring between them. 

"Oh shit. I didn't find my Ma a gift," she remembers, suddenly, that there was a point of this whole trip.

"Why don't you give her that tall twisty thing you made in shop last year?"

"It's a lamp. A lamp that doesn't work." 

Shaw doesn't bother asking how Root knows about the lamp. She chalks it up to casual stalking. Root probably has like a dozen polaroids of her making the thing.

"Tell her it's a sculpture and the exploded lightbulb is, um, a political statement."

"That doesn't even make sense."

"It's a political statement. It doesn't have to." 

Finally they find an acceptable gift for Mrs. Shaw. Sameen gets her a heavy, handmade wool blanket from that home decor store she likes. It's striped, Ma's favorite pattern. 

Shaw is very pleased with herself.

"I think that's good, it'll keep her warm when she watches tv in the den. What are you getting your parents for Christmas?"

Root shrugs, "I'll probably just give mom my word not to light any of her annoying friends on fire next year,"

"Please, you've never done that."

Root twirls on one foot, "don't judge an arson by her matchbook cover, sweetie."


End file.
